Week 6

This past week, our team had our first presentation. We felt like we did well on it and hope that our confidence is reflected from the feedback that Eric will give us. Besides the presentation, my team went back to work on the project since the deadline to finish the project is coming up. Chris was tasked with building the rest of the prototype boards and any 3D printing so that we can have these done when testing on the track is ready to begin. Steven and I needed to get the encoders working so that we can set a speed appropriately instead of trial and error. We also needed to start integrating pathing and the controls systems together so that we can start integrating the app team's work.

I was not able to get anywhere with the encoders. I am getting encoder counts but I am not sure what to do with these counts. I know that to find the speed in rpm, we need to the find the difference in the encoder counts in a set time interval and divide that difference by that time interval. The formula for speed is the basic distance over time formula. At this point, I will have to seek help from my teammates and maybe seek the help from Dr. Furman since he does have experience with encoders. This encoder work has left me stumped and frustrated but I am hoping that I will get the help I need to measure a speed from the encoders.

Besides the encoders, I decided to start the process of integration since my work got halted with the encoders. I wanted to at least get the hall effect sensor that will switch the lever arm when it detects a "dumb" magnet to work since the podcars will be in motion at all times without any destination set until a station number is sent to a particular podcar. Since the podcars will be moving around the track, the app team requested that we set four checkpoints on the outer corners of the track on the outside loop so that they know which route is the quickest to get to a station. I have incorporated four more RFID cards that will cause the podcar indicator to light the LED blue as it passes the card.

With less time to work on the project, my team and I are beginning to stress out because there is still much to do in such a short amount of time. We are just hoping that our system will work and that our effort was not wasted into getting a controls system that will actually work reliably and efficiently. With few time left to work on the project, I will continue to integrate the systems together and start testing with the other subteams as soon as our team has a part of the track built.