SPARTAN Superway Semester 2 Week 8

This week, I focused on rewriting my individual assignment #1. To do this, I looked through many peer reviewed journals to find better sources. As for the project, we decided that we needed to implement a notification LED as well as collision detection to our controls system.

Since last week, I have begun looking into the supersonic sensor that was used in the legacy design to determine if it would work for our system. It seems that it should work because the radius of our turns is much bigger than the legacy design. This would eliminate the previous team's problem of the sensor not working around turns due to the angle between the pods.

SPARTAN Superway Semester 2 Week 7

This week, we successfully added multi-pod capability to our system. We can display this feature on our prototype system, and soon we will be able to display it on a completed track section. In addition, we completed our first individual writing assignment and got our grades back.

In the upcoming week, I will be focused on rewriting my individual writing assignment and determining what features still need to be added by the end of the semester. Because we have a fully operational system but no way to test it, we have had to use other methods to test the system. These include our cardboard prototype and use of the serial monitor on the Arduino IDE.

SPARTAN Superway Semester 2 Week 6

This week, we watched the rest of the team presentations and got a better idea for how the end of the semester would be. We now have a fairly good idea of  when we will be able to begin testing. As of now, we are waiting for the track turning and switching sections to be completed. Once these are complete, we will be able to make sure our our controls system can handle all of the track features that Superway has to offer.

In the upcoming week, we will continue to work on multi-pod capability for the Arduino and Python code. We should be finished with this by next week and be able to demonstrate the new feature.

SPARTAN Superway Semester 2 Week 5

This week, we prepped for and gave the first major presentation for our project. I explained how much progress we have made so far and how far we have yet to go. We laid out a plan to finish our project, and as of now, we are completely on schedule. We also debuted a short demonstration of our pod car positioning system and how it works.

In the coming week, we will be focused on making interaction between our GUI and the rest of our controls system as seamless as possible. We will also be adding multi-pod functionality to our GUI.

SPARTAN Superway Semester 2 Week 4

This week, we will prepare to give our first presentation of the semester. We have already chosen different speaking parts and I have been assigned the current design progress and how we will meet our goals. In addition, I will continue to research Python Tkinter package to see how I can change the GUI and make it fit our needs.

Moving forward, my main goal is to create all of the features that a real-world transportation app would have. I will do this by studying other successful applications and then brainstorming different ways that I can modify my GUI to make it more user friendly.

SPARTAN Superway Semester 2 Week 3

This week, we are getting ready for our lightning talk as well as discussing with other small-scale teams to see where everyone is at. When we give our lightning talk, we will be going over what progress we have made this semester so far and hopefully we will get more informed as to the general state of the Superway project.

My task in particular this week is to add additional features to the small GUI that I made with Python this week. I plan on adding a feature to select a podcar or randomly choose the nearest pod. Then I will look up different packages to make the GUI look more professional.

SPARTAN Superway Semester 2 Week 2

This week, we presented our lightning talk as well as watched the other group's talks. This gave us much needed insight as to the overall progress and future of our projects. We then solidified our budget and we are now able to begin ordering parts. However, we will most likely wait a couple of weeks so that we are sure exactly what we need to order.

I have also started using Codecademy to learn how to use Python programming language. This could prove a viable alternative for processing language. In the coming weeks, I will continue to learn Python and create my own UI with it.