2019/2020 SpartanSuperway Small Scale Team

SSST Blog 10/17/19 Progress for the week: Controls Team  This week for the controls team, Asmaa continued working on combining the two main Arduino codes which we have so far. One of the codes was the one which implemented the ultrasonic sensor to get the motor to slow down if the ultrasonic sensor detected an object too close to it. This mimics what we want the bogies and pods to do once they are fully operational, it is essentially collision prevention system to where if a pod gets too close to another pod, the ultrasonic sensors will detect the proximity, and get the motor to slow down. The other Arduino code which we have is for the BLE. Using a pre mad app to test if the BLE works, Asmaa wrote a code to enable the Arduino to turn an LED on and off depending on the input of the user on the app. If we typed 1, the LED would turn on and if we typed 0, the LED would turn off. Asmaa combined both of these codes into one, with the slight difference that once we have our own iO...

Blog 11/14/2019 Progress for this week: Controls This week the controls team continued learning about hoe to integrate the BLE into the the project. This consisted of watching many videos and reading several indepth tutorials. It should not take much longer to be abel to successfully integrate the BLE into the iOS app. Another task which the team has been working on is testing the new stepper motor that arrived. From the testing that was done, it was concluded that modifications may have to be made to either the code or the circuit to properly use the driver board. Guideway Team The Small Scale Guideway Group focused on modifying parts of the track to fit the required dimensions. The overall size of the track will be 96 inches long and 48 inches wide. Straight parts of thr track will be in increments of 16 inches while the curved parts will be modified to adjust for the inner and outter curvature of the track. Overall, the model will consist of pieces that will fit onto one ano...

Progress for this week: Controls Team: The team successfully tested the HM 10 BLE module by connecting it to the Arduino and wrote a simple code to turn an LED on and off. Using an existing App called "HM10 Bluetooth Serial Lite", we were able to connect the BLE module to the app. The app allowed us to send information by typing messages like 0 or 1. We then wrote an Arduino code to receive the signal from the BLE module and print a message to the serial monitor and turn the LED on if signal received is 1 and turns it off if zero. Figure 1: HM 10 Arduino Code The Guideway Team: The Guideway Team has been modifying the CAD model of the track to implement new designs. We are adding dowel pins to have accurate alignment between the guideway pieces.  The team as a Whole We prepared a short presentation for the Podcar City Conference. Julio represented our team and presented the main goal of our team as well as our design choices for the track, bogie, and co...

Blog 10/31/2019 Progress for this week: Controls Team  Bluetooth module as shown in Figure 1 arrived today and testing will begin this week. The bill of materials documenting part description, cost, and website to purchase has been created. Swift classes are currently being taken for advancing progress on the iPhone application.  Figure 1. ECH HM-10 Bluetooth LE Module Guideway Team The Guideway Team is reviewing feedback from Presentation 2 in order to make better progress on design changes. We are currently reviewing the corners of the track to determine the best angle, so the bogie does not get stuck. Another design change under consideration is the best way to align the guideway pieces. Dr. Furman mentioned using dowel pins at the end of Presentation 2 that we may want to consider using. An example of how the dowel pins can be used for alignment is shown in Figure 2. The guideway team will begin to work on making more progress for the bogie switch mechanism. ...

SST Blog 10/23/19 Progress for the week: Controls Team This week consisted of presenting the progress on the iOS app as well as the motor and ultrasonic sensors for the Arduino. The iOS app currently has three main tabs: a home, order pod, and map tab as seen in Figure 1. Figure 1. Main tabs of iOS app. There are small parts of code included (Figure 2), but there needs to be more practice done to meet the requirements for the app. All of the code relies on Xcode and Swift, which Julio will continue to work on. Figure 2. Snippet of code so far. There are multiple parts being ordered at the moment, with a general idea of what needs to be included into the hardware for the controls. Figure 3 shows a Fritzing layout of the hardware, and a snippet of the motor code can be seen in Figure 4.  Figure 3. Fritzing layout of the Arduino and other hardware connected. Figure 4. Code for motor. Guideway Team The guideway team has made considerable progress in th...

SSST Blog 10/17/19 Progress for the week: Controls Team  This weeks progress was similar to last weeks. The controls team focused on two separate tasks. Lissette and Asmaa continued to develop the test code for the motor and ultrasonic sensors. The purpose of this code is to simulate what would happen if two bogies get too close to one another, in which case the ultrasonic sensors would detect this and slow down the motor of the bogie that is getting too close to the other bogie. There were some issues with the code last week, so this week kinks were continued to be worked out. A snippet of the Arduino code can be seen below in figure 1: Figure 1: Snippet of code to control motor speed using ultrasonic sensor  The space where the small scale team works was also searched for useful components. While Lissette and Asmaa were working on this, I (Julio) was working on the iOS app. So far I am just learning the basics of the programming language Swift by watching courses ...

Team Blog #3 What we have completed: This week the Progress was made on the guideway and with controls. The controls team focused on writing some preliminary Arduino scripts and developing the interface of the app that will be used. Using some of the sensors and motors that we already have. The controls team was able to roughly simulate what the the motors on the pods will be doing. Using the apple programming language swift, the team was able to begin developing a basic layout of what the interface will look like. The only issue that the controls team is currently facing is how to use swift on non mac laptops. The Guideway Team focused on determining the best design for supporting the guideway rails with the base piece. There are two options that have been considered so far. The first option consists of a rectangular stand (2X4 wood) with a slot as seen in Figure 1 part 2. There will be an aligner tool as shown in Figure 2 that is used to clamp down the track to the rectangul...