SPARTAN Superway Week 13

This week, we presented for our last time in the Fall semester. My part of the presentation was to do the dependencies and contingencies as well as update the Gantt chart and milestones.

In the coming weeks, I will be studying for finals so there will not be much progress made on our project. However, after break, we have laid out a plan to get a working user interface up and running. This will require many hours of learning how to write a UI program. I will spend the majority of next semester working on the UI.

SPARTAN Superway Week 12

This week, I have begun learning the "Processing" language in order to research how to make a better user interface for our controls system. The legacy UI uses a mobile phone app to order the pod and give directions. However, this system is confusing both for the user and for the developer. In addition, it rarely works and needs a great deal of instruction before it is up and running. Our goal is to create a UI that is user friendly and easy to pick up.

In the coming week, I will be getting ready for our third and final presentation for the Fall semester. My part is to to the Gantt chart and milestones as well as the dependencies and contingencies.

SPARTAN Superway Week 11

This week, we got the Xbee modules to communicate with the Arduino in a range of data types. With this new breakthrough, we have a fully working prototype, with the exception of the mobile app. With this prototype, we are able to send an instruction from a computer and wirelessly receive it on the Arduino, then execute the correct tasks to travel to the destination. In order to get the mobile app to work, we have enlisted new help from a computer engineering major that is interested in our project.

SPARTAN Superway Week 10

This week, I changed the pseudo code to write directions to motors and servos instead of just saying "forward" or "backward". We are now only two steps away from having a working prototype controls system. Next week, I will focus on getting the Xbees to communicate in arrays instead of communicating in characters as we have it now. The following week, we will be concentrating on getting the mobile app up and working with our new system

SPARTAN Superway Week 9

This week, the majority of our prototype parts came in. I was able to use all of our new RFID tags to create a prototype controls code that reads the tags and navigates to a position on the track. Right now, the code only allows the user to input a destination via a corded connection, but in the coming weeks we will implement the Xbee module into our code to pick a destination via wireless communication. Currently, the code relies on functions to control the motors and servos, but I just made it say "print to serial". In the next week, I will code actual voltage commands to run the motors. The RFID tag layout can be seen below.

SPARTAN Superway Week 8

This week, I created the BOM document and then my team and I filled it out with all the parts we would need for the rapid prototype model of our control system. As of now, we have the BOM complete and we will be ordering the parts tonight. Beginning as soon as the parts come in, hopefully the beginning of next week, we will begin working on our prototype. We plan to have a working prototype in two weeks. I will be responsible for the majority of the Arduino coding on this prototype, as well as any RFID components.

SPARTAN Superway Week 7

This week, we were able to get the Xbee module to communicate with the bogie using the previous team's bogie. However, we are still unable to get the Xbee to communicate directly with the Arduino. In the coming week, we will be addressing this issue as well as creating a bill of materials to begin rapid prototyping. In our prototype, we will be using a breadboard to connect all of our electronic components. We will then ensure that the RFID reader and card as well as the Xbee have open communication with the Arduino.

SPARTAN Superway Week 6

This week, I made a simple navigation code to move the bogie around the track. It uses switch cases to take inputs and make decisions. We also got the Xbee module to talk to a bogie and Arduino. Today we will further explore this communication and utilize it to interface the mobile app. In the upcoming week, we will be trying to use the Xbee module to send a list of commands to the Arduino then execute tasks based on the commands.

SPARTAN Superway Week 5

This week, we gave our first presentation for our project. I presented the introduction, challenges, and part of the progress. After the presentation, our group sat down and talked with other groups to figure has out different aspects of the bogie and track.

In the days following our class meeting, I was able to make a simple navigation code in Arduino. This code read from different RFID tags, then determined where to go next based on what the tag said. Because there are no physical bogies to test it on yet, it still has some pseudo code in it. This will be replaced by hard code once we get the mobile app up and running.

SPARTAN Superway Week 4

This week's meeting was mostly spent listening to the presentations of the full and half-scale teams. We got some vital information as to what they are working on and where they are headed as well as what the audience was looking for in the presentations. The rest of the meeting was spent discussing various actions items between the small-scale controls team. We decided that we would meet on Mondays at 2pm from now on to work on our project.

At this week's additional meet-up, we were able to get the RFID reader to work. Once we did this, we were able to run if statements to determine if the correct RFID tag was being read. This is significant because it will be the foundation of the navigation system on the new bogie.

SPARTAN Superway Week 3

This week, we began with an introduction to the presentation that we will be giving next week. We then met with the Summer controls team to address any questions we had and get feedback from them. I then learned about the positioning system of the 1/12th scale bogie and I devised a method to make it more efficient. Currently, the bogie uses three separate forms of positioning itself. However, I believe that we could narrow that down to just one, the RFID sensor and chips.

From this point, it became my action item to research the RFID system that is in place and figure out how we could scale it up and replace the hall effect sensors and the encoder. Thus far, I have figured out how to wire the sensor and get some code in place to recognize that there is a passive chip near the sensor. However, I ran into some problems reading the information from the chip, so I have reached out for help from the Summer controls team. I will have a functional code and a flowchart by the next meeting.

SPARTAN Superway Week 2

This week, we began by giving our lightning talk that we had prepared in the previous week. We talked about what controls code is and what our plans were for the upcoming Futran track controls.

After the talk, we created a small list of deliverables to complete by the next week. This included contacting Shane to schedule a meeting where we would discuss the problems that the previous controls team faced. We have contacted him and are scheduled to meet up on 9/13/2017. The second task we assigned ourselves is to research a universal positioning system that would work better than the "counting" technique that the 1/12th scale track is currently using. Our ideas included HID, RFID, or NFC. The next thing on our task list is to read the Superway code and begin to understand it. I have read through the code twice in order to get a better understanding of how the track works. There is still a lot to learn, but I am making progress. Our final task for next week is to test all six of the bogies and try to get them in working condition.

SPARTAN Superway Week 1

For the second week of SPARTAN Superway project, I was assigned to the 1/12th scale model track in the controls group. This week we discussed our role in the Superway project as well as met the teams and groups we would be working with. I have begun looking at the documentation from previous years and trying to get a feel for how the controls code works.

This year, it will be our task to revamp the current 1/12th scale track and get it working. In addition, we will be building a new 1/12th scale track using the Futron-style track. This track will be built around the existing track to show a side-by-side comparison of the two. In the upcoming week, we will be discussing our plans for the new Futran track and deliverable goals that we need to accomplish.

About me

My name is Ben Trump and I am starting my last year of school at SJSU. I have had 4 different internships and I am currently looking for another to carry me through the school year. I am very interested in mechatronics and controls, which are the main reasons that I want to work on the SPARTAN Superway Project.