Week 2

Overview

To start the week off, we held a meeting the day before going to the lab to discuss our progress so far and what we needed to do next time in the lab. We also discussed our responsibilities and started our individual logs, since we only had a project log, for the whole group, so far.

The next day, we went to the lab and started the day off by testing the raspberry pi web-cam, which we had connected the week before. The camera produced a video output on the screen but that output only updated every few seconds, i.e., it had a low FPS. This would need to be improved later, but for now, we were happy to see that the web-cam was connected properly and working. Next, we attached the camera to the rotating holder using a small piece of cardboard and some red tape.


Next we took a cardboard box from the lab technicians to act as casing for our electronics and wiring. Most of us spent a few hours just carving out different holes for all the wiring coming out of the pi. We also spent some time building a small cardboard platform to elevate the pi from the ground, but didn't end up using it as the box container made it unnecessary. 


Meanwhile, our software developer, had experimented with the idea of using the raspberry pi camera module to identify objects. We didn't even know that we could use this simple camera for that, and our plan so far was to only use the sensor for colour identification and tracking. However this opened new doors for us to improve our project and we decided to explore it further after getting the basics out of the way and testing all the components.


Next, we started testing the servos with some code produced by our developer. Our aim was to confirm that the servos actually worked, and that we had connected them properly; as well as to understand their capabilities and responsiveness to given commands. We only tested the horizontal-motion servo, which responded undesirably. We ran out of time and were unable to test it further.

Challenges

  • The camera's magnetic ribbon kept hitting, and getting stuck on, the top of the box container. It was a challenge to carve out a smooth path for it, as we kept cutting away more cardboard. Luckily we had a very large box. We ended up tilting the pi. We even thought of constructing a ramp to angle the pi in such a way that the ribbon would be more stretched and less likely to get stuck. Ultimately we were able to achieve the desirable motion by cutting more of the box's top.
  • We tried to test the horizontal-motion servo by getting it to rotate 90 or 45 degrees, but it kept responding by turning really fast and trying to go beyond 90 degrees, but being physically limited by the cardboard box, which obstructed the camera's magnetic ribbon's path. We thought that this issue could be due to the servo thinking that its starting position is facing the other way, opposite to what we understood it to be.

Reflections

  1. Too many group members spent too much time designing and making the exterior of the set up (the cardboard container). It took us more time than expected, and at this early stage, we should have focused more on implementing the more critical features of our project so that we don't have to rush them at the end.

Tasks for next Lab/Meeting

  1. Annalise and fix the problem with the horizontal servo and test the vertical servo as well.
  2. Test the colour sensor.

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