Meeting Minutes

Thursday, August 30, 2018 (Lab)

Perform lab 1

Friday, August 31, 2018 (Class)

Write team contract
Begin updating team website

Saturday, September 1, 2018 (Lab)

Get robot assembled
Test and write motor control functions (calibrate motors)
Test and write sensor reading functions

Thursday, September 6, 2018 (Lab)

Mount line sensors on robot
Find a threshold to distinguish between line and non-line
Test adjustRight and adjustLeft values to find a good adjustment value for line tracking
Try to make the robot follow a line
Catch up on documentation

Friday, September 7, 2018 (Class)

Review Lab 1 documentation
Review Brian and Kenneth's code from last night
Plan out FSM for "figure eight"

Thursday, September 13, 2018 (Lab)

Finish and document Milestone 1
Discuss future design choices:

3D print a custom base --> Brian and Kenneth have CAD experience
Custom mill a PCB --> Tyler
Mounting battery pack undernear base will lower center of gravity

Discuss $100 budget limitation

Friday, September 14, 2018 (Lecture)

Kenneth emailed Kirstin with budget questions

Can we use an Arduino Mega?
What is ordering process?
How much time between placing order and arrival?

Discuss Lab 2

Acoustic Team = Kenneth & Tyler
Optical Team = Brian & Eric

Thursday, September 20, 2018 (Lab)

Acoustic Team

Change prescaler from 32 to 128
Lowers sampling rate from 38kHz to ~9.5kHz
Build low-pass filter and amplifier circuitry

Optical Team

Built bandpass filter --> helps with noise but may not be necessary
Consider adding digital filter around the expected bin output of FFT

Friday, September 21, 2018 (Lecture)

Discuss both sub-team's progress
Discuss changing prescaler value
Discuss FSM design for final robot design

Thursday, September 27, 2018 (Lab)

Complete Lab 2 assignment

Take detailed pictures and videos

Discuss plan for CAD and PCB designs

Friday, September 28, 2018 (Lecture)

Finish up Lab 2 documentation and publish on website
Meet this weekend for PCB design + CAD, integrate IR detection code
Work on lab3 goals throughout week (RF stuff)

Thursday, October 4, 2018 (Lab)

Completed Lab 2 IR/Audio integration
Completed Lab 2 Documentation
Planned schedule for Milestone 2 and further extra tasks

Friday, October 5, 2018 (Lecture)

Drew complete circuit diagram and pinout
Began PCB board design
Scheduled PCB mill training

Sunday, October 7, 2018 (Open Lab Hours)

Began testing Milestone 2
Ran into issues with the IR_hat FFT function running slowly
Brainstorm solutions

Use quicker digital filtering
Run IR_hat FFT less frequently
Slow down max speed of the robot

Thursday, October 11, 2018 (Lab)

Determine issues with Milestone 2
Begin fixing FFT code

Friday, October 12, 2018 (Lecture)

Review progress thus far
Discuss solutions to fix Milestone 2
Finalize PCB design specifications

Saturday, October 13, 2018 (Open Lab)

Fix FFT code
Store default ADC values and reset ADC after each FFT call

Monday, October 15, 2018 (Open Lab)

Swap out analog line sensors for digital line sensors
Mount 2 more IR range finders (3 total)
Complete Milestone 2 code
Run Milestone 2 and record videos
Work on Milestone 2 documentation

Thursday, October 18, 2018 (Lab)

Troubleshoot Nordic nRF24L01+ transceivers
Discuss maze data storage algorithm

Friday, October 19, 2018 (Lecture)

Team check-in with TAs
Open Lab - work on Lab 3

Saturday, October 20, 2018 (Open Lab)

Write algorithm for maze storage
Write algorithm to update GUI

Sunday, October 21, 2018 (Open Lab)

Write all functions required for Lab 3
Begin integrating systems

Thursday, October 25, 2018 (Lab)

Complete Lab 3
Document Lab 3 and post to website
Divide into two groups and begin working on Lab 4

Friday, October 26, 2018 (Lecture)

Review Lab 3 documentation

Sunday, October 28, 2018 (Open Lab)

Fix IR Hat detection
Update Lab 3

Thursday, November 1, 2018 (Lab)

Troubleshooting FPGA camera interface
Finished Lab 4 arduino code

Friday, November 2, 2018 (Lecture)

Edit Lab 4 documentation
Received extension for Lab 4

Thursday, November 8, 2018 (Lab)

Restarted the FPGA downsampling code with an FSM approach
Worked on color detection

Friday, November 9, 2018 (Lecture)

Reviewed plans for path planning
Updated more Lab 4 Documentation

Friday, November 9, 2018 (Open Lab)

Finished up Lab 4 with (partial) color detection and recorded video
Finished up Lab 4 Documentation

Thursday, November 15, 2018 (Lab)

Continued to improve on color detection

Friday, November 16, 2018 (Lecture)

Decided on full system encoding for radio transmissions
Milestone 3 planning and Documentation

Thursday, November 22, 2018 (THANKSGIVING BREAK)

Thanksgiving

Friday, November 23, 2018 (THANKSGIVING BREAK)

Thursday, November 29, 2018 (Lab)

Worked on search algorithm for robot path planning
Added base station code for processing treasure information
Full system integration with IR hat (minus camera + FPGA)

Monday, December 3, 2018 (Open Lab During Lecture)

Tested on full 9x9 maze
Determined that re-wiring is necessary before the competition
Noticed issue with radio receiving phantom treasure messages

Hard-coded it to 0 to avoid this from happening

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 (FINAL COMPETITION!!)