Colin Ilas, Jr.

During this week, we began planning our initial concepts and rapid prototypes. We created a bill of materials for all the components that we will be needing for our prototype. Through this, we found that we will be buying a new Arduino Mega 2560 to ensure that our final prototype code works perfectly with a new board. We decided to order two new Xbee modules to isolate any communication problems we might be having due to faulty Xbees. I also found a servo that is metal geared and has more speed and torque than the current motors. While torque isn’t much of a dependency, the faster speed will help make the switching mechanism work much faster. Lastly, we ordered some breadboards and other small items so that by next week we can begin building our rapid prototype.

This week, we presented our current information for Presentation 2. To help smoothen my delivery of information and keep it interesting, I broke up our control system into it’s different parts and introduced them all separately while using animations to help tell what their purpose is. Through this, I believe it helped with my presentation material and significantly improved the overall impactness of it compared to our first presentation. I will continue to learn how to improve my presentation skills and hopefully by next presentation be able to perfectly present my information in a good manner. The 2nd presentation can be found on our team blog.

During our 7th week, we began looking into the Xbee communication between the server and the Arduino. We were able to decode the packet that is sent to the Arduino however cannot figure out why the Arduino is not receiving the ticket. We will begin taking the code apart a bit more to try to understand. I will also try creating a new script for the Arduino and see if we can get it to react with a simpler code. Lastly, I will begin doing calculations for our 2nd presentation. I will look into the speed that the car will be travelling, as well as the current draw of the whole system. This will help me plan out how we will need to wire the Arduino as well as where any improvements can be made with the components. 

For this week, we wanted to work with the code a bit more to understand how the previous system was program. Since we got the RFID working, we started working with the wireless XBee modules and how they communicated with the main server. We found that the Arduino makes a packet that is sent to the app, including data about the pod's position and other statuses. This week will be trying to all get the app working on our laptops, as we could not open the serial monitor from one computer. We hope that we can get this running by next week so that we can begin making changes.