Sunday, May 25, 2014

Electronic boxes and shelves

Today you were able to get a lot done, and as it was more productive you were more optimistic about the project…

You went to Travis's at 0900 again and worked on the CAD models that you have been making the last couple days. After finishing all the parts for the heat sinks you worked on creating shelves and boxes for the embedded Linux controllers. 

You then ate lunch (leftover pizza) and played a little frisbee to get some fresh air and a break from the computer from about 1245 to 1330. You then finished the shelving and the boxes to epoxy the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone in. You then made all the pieces so that they could either be 3D printed or cut out on the 3-axis router.

You then cut out part of the float to make sure you could easily fit the batteries into it. After that you programmed motor controllers to send down to Baxter so they can finish the thrusters. Then you headed home around 1845. 

Finally you tried on the tux that you Grandfather gave you and were happy to find that it fit really well.

Weekend 3: ECE

Today you again woke up at 8:25 (predictable...right?) and took a shower. You started work on the Cape for the BeagleBone on the float. At around 9:10 you went down to have breakfast. Liam and Nick were at your house, but your dad had not finished making the pancakes he had wanted to make. You, Liam, and Nick then waited and talked a little, but mostly ate pancakes. At 9:50 Liam and Nick headed downstairs while you headed upstairs to finish the Cape.

Although you went downstairs a few times, you spent almost four hours planning and putting together the cape (you don't know why this took so long...). Below is the finished product with all of the sensors attached:


After finishing the Cape you continued to work on the BeagleBone software. You now have running code which will read the sensor data from ALL of the sensors and output it in a byte stream to a client. It was exciting to finally get some pieces put together. 

Tomorrow you are going to work on the Pi software...basically creating servers to read incoming Xbox data and interpret it -- whether it's the PWM for thrusters, servo, or LEDs.