Week 7 - Getting Components to Communicate

For this weeks meeting, 10/11/17, we were told that our Presentation 2 was to be presented the next week, 10/18/17. After being briefed, by Dr. Furman and Ron Swenson, on where we're at as a whole, we went to our workstation and began trying to get everything working together. 

Last week, on Thursday, 10/5/17, I was finally able to get the port opened on my Mac. The problem wasn't an incorrect directory in the server.js file or anything. I solved the problem by using '$npm install serialport' in my Terminal. I recently purchased a windows laptop and I was able to open the port on there as well. 

After we were able to get the port opened, we got a message that read: 

"

$ node ./server.js

Port opened

New ticket detected!

userId: LLSCYWTgVKOhTUDD3sGgZ9LyAIc2, firstName: Testy, lastName: The Testing Tester1

addUserToPodSchedule()

spawning client

status: 100

client for podNum 1 has sent command: 01060203

client for podNum 1 has sent command: 01020008

"

After setting everything up in the warehouse, we tried purchasing tickets to send the podcars from station to station, however it didn't work as fluidly as expected. I believe the pod isn't reading it's position so it doesn't know where to go. There are also 2 RFID checkpoints that aren't on the track because we've been using them for RFID read/write testing. I thought if we try putting them back it'll work but no luck. 

We're currently in the process of checking all the nodes that connect everything wireless to see if the problem lies there. A node is any connecting piece (e.g. My computer, usb cable connecting master Xbee to my computer, the XBee master itself, the arduino, the XBee slave on the arduino, etc.) 

We contacted the old team to see if there is a more clear way the view what is communicated between devices other than the message posted above, however it seems that not much else can be readily and easily viewed.