This week, most of our parts arrived that we will need for initial assembly of the bare-bones device. Most importantly, we received the IMU and Raspberry Pi, which we should be able to use along with an Arduino unit and SD card to start work. Once these arrived, we were able to learn more about the components necessary to operate the Raspberry Pi unit - most of these we have or can easily acquire, which we will be doing over the next week. It also required a change of settings on the microSD card to the NOOBS operating system; this change was accomplished on Thursday, and should allow the memory card to be compatible with the Pi. We will also have to install Rasbian on the Pi unit.
Over the weekend, we all will meet to begin assembly of the parts we have. To prepare, we will begin reading through manuals for the parts, since it is important that we are all able to operate the system. Emma will locate guides for the IMU since it does not come with instructions; she will then become the team ‘expert’ on this material. Based on how the weekend’s meeting goes, we will plan our work for the upcoming week. Our goals for next week include connecting the IMU to the Arduino such that data is transmitted, developing initial programming for the Pi, and having all available parts correctly connected. This week, we ordered a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ because it is cost-effective and has 4 USB ports. We also ordered a 32GB SanDisk Extreme microSDHC card for Pi storage because it has wear leveling and will be compatible with the Pi. Both will arrive this Tuesday, January 22nd. Katelyn is looking for a haptic motor that has a USB input and can work with the Pi. Thom already owns a SparkFun RedBoard, so when our components arrive next week we can begin trying to put them together in Professor Widder’s lab.
On Tuesday we met with Professor Klaesner to talk about our progress. We asked about the possibility of using a tilt sensor instead of an IMU, and he pointed us to Maria Mihaelescu, who experimented with both during her project. After consulting with her, we determined that the MPU6050 sensor, a 6-axis IMU, would be best suited to our needs. It is well-tested and extensive documentation is available online, which will be a useful resource for our group since code is one of our weaker points of experience. This should be arriving in the mail today, and we will be able to begin testing and working with the sensor immediately. We also set weekly meeting times that line up with times where Professor Widder’s lab is available. For this week and part of next week, these will be used for planning and ordering; in the future, they will be used for building and testing the device, as well as for coding and getting help from professors. |
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Thom Ellison, Emma Huff, Katelyn Miyasaki Archives
April 2019
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