5/29/29 Week 9 Update

No Lecture / Recitation was given on Monday 5/27/2019 due the holiday of Memorial Day!

Lab Day 5/29/2019: During Lab Time, the group started to compose a draft of the Final Report due Lab Day of Week 10 (6/5/2019). Benedict also set up the apparatus to begin with testing, discovered that the camera would not detect the gel magnet consistently, as the pixel count for thee radius was around 5. At such a low pixel count, a warning is given by MATLAB that the circle finding will not be accurate below pixel radii of 5. Hence, the height of the camera was sill to high (currently 12 cm off leveled surface), even though it had been reduced once before. He estimated that this surface would have to be reduced to 6 cm or even 5 cm off leveled surface.

This adjustment enables us to both better the reliability of the circle tracking and taking the images  at a lower resolution to improve performance and the count of frames per second that are able to be calculated.
It will be a challenge to find the best compromise between resolution and refresh rate. The exact numbers will have to be determined by further testing.

Joe and Benedict will meet on Friday afternoon to further test and evaluate what changes need to be made to the test setup to successfully perform a "surgery". In addition, they will also further discuss a meeting times to both create and practice the Final presentation for Week 10 Lecture Day (Monday, 6/3/2019).

5/25/19 Week 8 Update

Lecture day 5/20/19:

During recitation time, the group talked over the remaining tasks that needed to be accomplished during Week 8. Those tasks are to test the setup that was built in Week 7 and see if our iteration of the project can be made functional or requires more design polish.

The group reached a consensus to meet on Tuesday, 5/21/2019 in the Innovation Studio, as most of our materials for the projects are stored there. During that time, we will attempt a test run of the control code with the gel that was made in Week 7 on 5/15/2019. The results of the test run will determine the future direction of the project and the future tasks that need to be accomplished.

Some of the pre-established concerns that came up during the group's pretesting efforts in the recitation were the following:

• The center of the neodymium magnet needed to be on exactly the same height as the the gel magnet, therefore either the base of the motor or the height of the neodymium magnet holder needs to be modified (height-wise)
• The neodymium magnet and the gel magnet also must match on the X & Y-Axes (height = Z-Axis)
• The height of the camera stand might be too high and therefore might give us inaccuracies when attempting to track the magnets movement and therefore our ability to correct its trajectory. 

Test Meeting on 5/21/19:

The group met with the prospects of starting a test run of the project. Multiple of the pretesting concerns had turned out to be valid concerns:

• The camera height was too high
• The gel was denser than it had been the Wednesday previous
• The neodymium magnet and the gel magnet did not match on the Z-Axis (height = Z-Axis)

The proposed fixes were as followed:

• Reduce the camera height to 10 in from ground surface
• Test the setup the day the gel is made
• The height of the external magnet's center will be 11.41 cm from the ground surface, and so will the gel magnet:
• This will require a reprint of the external magnet holder shown in red below in order to have the center of the external magnet be at the same height level as the gel magnets.

A visual representation of said height adjustment 

Lab day 5/22/19:

All of the proposed changes from the Test Meeting the day prior have been made during Lab time. The 3-D print for the third iteration of the magnet holder was started. The height adjustment to the camera stand was made, as can be seen in the background of the image above. Ryan made another dish of gel in today's lab that will be used in testing the setup tomorrow.

5/13/2019 Week 7 Update

Lecture Day 5/13/2019: In recitation, the group decided to start working on the Final Report. The group was also introduced to what specifications should be given in a newly created specifications page (see Fig. 1):

Fig. 1 - Specifications for Final Report

None of these specifications have been made up by the group members yet (except for the magnet holder and the motor table attachment (see previous posts)). Hence the group has decided to meet up at 3:30pm tomorrow (5/14/2019) in the innovation studio to build a setup with all the necessary 3D printed parts.

Extra-Curricular group meeting 5/14/2019:
During this extra group meeting, the group went to work to quickly print another magnet holder (after we determined that our old design version was insufficient and would break if attempted to be used as a magnet holder; indeed, it broke!). Furthermore, after Joe had left, Benedict went to work to build a camera stand and motor socket. (see Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3).

Lab day 5/15/2019: During Lab, Joseph and Ryan worked in the wet Lab to produce gel for our test of the newly built setup. This gel was stored in the wet Lab fridge along with the gels of other groups.
Benedict went to work on the setup and captured some images of the preliminary setup design:

Fig. 1 - Frontal View of the Setup

Fig. 2 - Top View of the Setup

Fig. 3 - Side View of the Setup

Additionally, Benedict also worked on the functionality of the motor and resolved the connection issues the Arduino's AdaFruit MotorShield was experiencing. Here is a captured video of the motor functioning exactly as the code demands it to:

5/6/2019 Week 6 Update

Lecture day 5/6/2019: During lecture, the group asked the TA about how the Adafruit MotorShield is supposed to be used with the Arduino. He pointed us towards an online resource and the Week 1 Lecture slides for guidance. Additionally, he showed us how to connect the Arduino and the Adafruit MotorShield by using the male-to-male pins that we given with the Adafruit MotorShield.

Fig. 1 - Setup Image given in Week 1 Lecture Slides

Through this new information, we determined that the Adafruit MotorShield should be soldered to the pins (see Fig. 1):

Fig. 1 - Pins to be soldered (including opposite side pins)

Upon further reading through the Week 1 lecture slides, Joseph and Benedict found out that we will need a power cable in order to power both the Arduino and the Adafruit MotorShield (see Fig. 2):

Fig 2 - Power Connector (on right of image) of Arduino

 As seen in Fig. 1, the female pin connector on the motor's wires will be incompatible with the future setup. The wires of the motor (see Fig. 3) will be snipped and stripped to fit into the female press connectors (see Fig. 1):

Fig. 3 - Female pin connector for the 5V motor

To-Do-List for Lab Day:

Get Power cable for Arduino in Innovation studio.
Snip the Motor connector and strip wires
Solder Adafruit MotorShield V2 and Arduino Board together
Test code with the above done

Lab Day 5/8/2019: During Lab Day of Week 6, Benedict and Joe got to work on the Control Code. Upon attemting to get the motor spinning, we recieved a specific error:

****TODO: insert copy of error here****

We believe that this error was caused by a poor connection between Analog Pin 4 and 5, which are the output pins of the Arduino code. This problem has possibly been resolved by soldering the pins to the Adafruit MotorShield (see Fig. 1):

Fig. 1 - Analog Pins soldered to connector plugs

Fig1.1 - All pins soldered in place

Additionally, Benedict also reinforces the wire tips with leaded solder for a better connection to the clamp connection points of the Adafruit MotorShield (see Fig 2.). This should also rule out the flimsey wire connections as possible faults in the circuit.

Fig.2 - Reinforced wire tips

5/3/2019 Week 5 Update

Lecture Day 4/29/2019: During the time given to the class as recitation, the group decided to rewrite the proposal based on the feedback that was given to us the Lecture in Week 4 (4/22/2019). The group had used the wrong case of address (1st person plural vs. 3rd person plural). The proposal was also wordy and lacked depth. It was missing most technical details about the setup that we are choosing to build; it was lacking specifications of technicalities, a setup design or dimensions of our parts / setup.

Lab Day 5/1/2019: During Lab time, the group finalized the 3-D models for the dish table and the magnet holder. These 3-D models will be submitted to be 3-D printed as prototype parts and will be tested for fitment and function.

Fig. 1 - Side View of the 3-D models to be 3D-printed

Fig. 2 - Opposite Side View of 3-D models to be 3D-printed

Joseph and Benedict took a look at the control code presented in the Week 1 Lecture slides. In order for this code to function, we needed an "AdaFruit Motor Shield V2". This breadboard has to be used instead of the Arduino. When the group attempted to use the Arduino with the given control code, MATLAB gave errors that will have to be debugged.

This board also has no pinned connectors soldered into it (neither male or female). Since Benedict already has soldering knowledge, he will solder the male pin connections to the board. He will also, however, teach Joseph and possibly Ryan how to solder, as we deem it an essential learning experience that is intended to be taken away from this class.

Once the 3-D printed prototype pieces of the table and magnet holder exist physically, Benedict can start building the camera stand and design a base for the motor, breadboard and wiring to be tucked under (this is done to shield the electronics from the strong influence of the Neodymium magnet).

The group hopes to have the 3-D printed pieces by Friday (5/3/2019) and Benedict aspires to have the camera stand built by Lecture on Monday of Week 6 (5/6/2019).

Meanwhile during the Lab Day, Joseph has gotten the motor to move in a manner that would be used to spin a dish of gel, as proposed in our setup: