Week 5 - Presentation1

In today's session (9/27/17), we presented our first major presentation to the class and you can find that on our group blog (found here, under 'Week 5').

Contents of Presentation 1:

- Significance of Spartan Superway as a whole

- Significance of our Small-scale subteam

- Methods that have been attempted in the past and where we intend to go with this information

- An idea of specifications 

- Gantt Chart

- Team member responsibilities 

After presenting and watching the rest of the groups present, we had very little time to get together and work.

As far as wireless communications go, I ended up getting an XBee master and slave connected and I downloaded the necessary repositories for the Android app and the code/back-end server files. I wasn't able to get the App running just yet because I wasn't able to locate some files. I just emailed Shane, a member of the Summer 2017 Internship program, so once he responds, I'm hoping I can get everything running smoothly. 

Week 4 - Preparing For And Presentation 1 Viewings

On our 9/20/17 session, we were prepared to present our first presentation, basically giving the class an update on what we've been working on since the semester began, and the direction we are planning to go with our Controls sub-team. Once we got there, it was announced that only Full-scale and Half-scale were going that day so we sat back and enjoyed the presentations that the other groups had prepared. We'll be presenting next week (9/27/17).

Afterwards, our sub-team grouped together to discuss the progress we had made in the previous week. I had been working on getting the XBee modules connected, as well as downloading all of the necessary repositories and files so that I could get the mobile app running. 

My main objective is to understand how the wireless communication works and what information it communicates.

Week 3 - Getting more familiarized with our roles

This class session, 9/13/17, we started out with an overview of whats happening in South Africa with Ron and got estimations of when we will be receiving any documentation that can give us more insight into what the Futran track actually looks like.

We then met Shane and Khang from the Summer Internship 1/12 scale team and they gave us a nice rundown of how everything works. However the podcars were having troubles and we weren't really able to see a full demonstration of the podcars working, so that's something we're going to be working on.

We also threw around the idea of using more RFID chips around the track to help with position tracking

In the next week we'll all be reviewing the code to try to understand it better. I will be looking into the XBee modules to try to get a grasp on how they operate so we can have an easier time running and testing the podcars.

Next Wednesday we have our first big presentation which will just be an update on our progress thus far.

Week 2 - Lightning Talk

This week consisted of a lot of research into the work of previous groups that were responsible for the 1/12 scale controls. This was the primary goal because we had to put together a short Powerpoint presentation for our Lightning Talk, which consisted of:

1) Title Slide

2) Project Description

3) Project Specifications

4) Project End Goals

5) Ending Slide

I was in charge of our end goals for the project so I basically went through previous reports to see what groups weren't able to complete, either because the said task wasn't a priority or because they just couldn't get it to work.

End goals as of 9/6/17

Fixes to be made by us:

1.    Hall effect sensor not reading left (outer track) rail magnet.

·       Install new, adjustable, bracket design (several 3D printed in the work area)

2.    Improvement on switching mechanism when leaving a checkpoint.

•    Occasionally the right steering arm will not go down low enough, so the bogie gets stuck or the left arm does not go high enough and the bogie falls. (This happens due to the servo getting stuck on a wire or the gear on the servo breaking.)

3.    Re-evaluate whether our current DC motor can handle the load of the bogie.

a.    Occasionally if it’s running continuously (10-15 min), bogie will randomly stop or significantly slow down. Maybe due to particles getting inside gear assembly but more likely to be load.

4.    Research on implementing best shortest path algorithm

5.    Make libraries for sensors and bogie components to reduce 2000+ lines of code.

6.    Fix merging collision problem

7.    Apply everything we have so far to the new Futran track.

Other than that, our goals were to read up on the existing code to try and understand as much of it as we can, as well as to research different forms of position tracking, for the bogie.

Week 1: First Meeting / Team Formation

On 8/30/17, we had our first meeting at the Spartan Superway warehouse to get an overview on what we will be working on and to see what groups each of us was assigned to. We were able to see the full scale, half scale, and 1/12 scale models of the project, as well as demonstrations of the half and 1/12 scales.

I was assigned to the 1/12-scale Controls team with Ben Trump and Coby Ilas. We spent some time getting to know each other while waiting for Eric and Dr. Furman to come prep us on what we'll be focusing on for the project. Our main task for the week is to research previous work that has been done by past Controls teams so that we can do a Lightning Talk this upcoming Wednesday, 9/6/17. The Lightning Talk is a 5 minute presentation on what we've found and in what direction we're planning on going.

Since the 1/12 scale work for the Controls team seems mostly done, I'm hoping my research into the work will give me a good understanding of how everything was accomplished so that I can apply what I've learned to the new Futran track that is going to be implemented. Because of this new style of track, it seems that many aspects of the project must be reworked from scratch.

For now, I have plenty of reading to do in order to obtain a better understanding of all the work that has been done thus-far.