Week 15 (Dec. 5, 2018): Pres. #3 (Final Design Specs.) Day 2 – Battery Charge Time Calc. & Reflection

Week 29 (May 1, 2019): CAD of Induction Charger Hub & Podcar Door, then 3D Printing

This week, while David worked on the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino code, Patrick completed the CAD (computer-aided-design) models. We had to create 3D solid modeling of two parts: the induction charging hub to hold the induction transmitter coil and the pod car door to hold the induction receiver coil. Over the weeks, the CAD models underwent several revisions. The induction hub saw two revisions, with the third design being the final version. Because the 3D printer available to us in the shop, the Prusa Mark3 i2, had a bed length of 10 inches, we had to restrict the length of the charging hub to a safe 9.5 inches. Version 1 simply entailed us placing the hub on the side of the bracket and then screwing it into place on the bracket’s side via the two holes at the top: For version 2, in addition to placing the hub on the side of the bracket and then screwing it into place on the bracket’s side via the two holes at the top, the bracket would wrap around the two bracket...

Week 30 (May 8, 2019): Prototype Evaluation Day, Final Circuit, Incorporating 3D printed parts, Final Presentation, Posters, & Maker Faire

Today, we held Prototype Evaluation Day. Like the rest of the senior project classes, the advisor walks around the classroom, evaluating the senior project apparatuses, asking the student teams to demonstrate their devices, and explain their design, though processes, and results. Dr. Furman and Ron examined and inspected the Full-Scale model, then the Half-Scale model, and lastly, us, the Small-Scale Team. We had completed our circuit to power one pod car and one of the two induction charging stations prior to Evaluation Day, so we were able to successfully demonstrate the pod car driving around the track as well as the induction charging. While we were still troubleshooting issues with the tablet’s Raspberry Pi communicating with the Arduino, the Arduino is still capable of operating on its own, so we could at least demonstrate the motor driving the pod car around the track and through the offline stations. Depicted below is our final circuit that powers the pod car: Dep...

Week 26 (Apr. 10, 2019): Programming – Python and Arduino Communication

The Python code and the Arduino code are able to run successfully on their respective boards, i.e. the Raspberry Pi in the tablet and the Arduino in the pod car. However, the Raspberry Pi is having issues sending data to the Arduino via the XBee RF (radio-frequency) module, specifically the user-input data. Whenever the user inputs the pickup station, destination, and selects a pod car, the Serial Monitor on the Arduino IDE does not show any of the data. Investigating further, we plugged the XBee module into one of our laptops, then opened the XCTU software’s (the software which deals with RF modules) Serial port as well. Now, whenever the user inputs the stations, we can see on the XCTU Serial Monitor that the receiving XBee does get the pickup station, destination, and pod car number, but the three inputs are all found between jumbles of random characters. As displayed in the screenshot of the XCTU software below, if the user inputs pickup station 2, destination station 5, and sele...

Patrick Barrera's Progress for Spartan Superway

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