Day 6 Log

October 20:

This past week I was able to do a large amount of research. I found many different variations on what I am currently attempting to do. This research has lead me to decide upon certain aspects of my project. I also drew up an initial sketch of the casing and found that the placement and size of the housing will depend greatly upon the shape of the underside of the car.

October 29:

This past week was a very eventful week. I was able to design and print a first iteration of the housing without a lid. I immediately found problems with the dimensions I had set and the problem with the shape of the Arduino. Unfortunately the Arduino is not perfectly square so adjustments were made to the design. A second housing is being printed and will hopefully be more accurate. The next task is to focus on the research and try and get in contact with someone from the city who helps maintain the roads.

November 6:

This past week great progress was made. The casing is the correct size and I was able to test it by fitting all the different pieces into their various places and plugging in the Arduino. The ultrasound holes are the correct size and allow the sensor to pickup the signals it sends out without any interference. I was also able to find some more formal resources to support the reasoning behind my project.

November 14:

The shuttle system was a main area of focus this past week. There have been many different problems with the design and the movement of such a part. The part requires sturdy support as well as a stepper for controlling the the movement. There is also the problem of attaching the shuttle system to the garbage truck. I have yet to see the underside of one and am not sure how well I would be able to fasten it, even if there were enough space.

November 24:

The design of the shuttle system has been very difficult to prototype. I do not have a garbage truck to base my model off of, and there are no CAD files to help me with the dimensions. Most of the design at this stage is speculation until I can test this on a real garbage truck.

December 8:

This past week was spent working on the shuttle system, specifically the shuttle movement itself. I was able to order metal rods which will support the electronics. My latest problem has been attempting to find a method of attaching the entire apparatus to a rectangular bracket, the same as what would be found in use as a part of the chassis of a garbage truck.

December 16:

The past week was spent adapting and designing a method for holding the rods onto a car. This proved very tricky as the entire system will have to be attached to a rectangular support structure, which is a very unusual shape. I plan on using a clamp like system in order to firmly hold on to the car without it falling.

January 7:

The clamp is proving much more difficult then expected. Getting the dimensions just right is very difficult. However, if I am able to look and measure the supports of a car or garbage truck, then I might be able to get some decent data.

January 15:

The past week was spent adapting and changing the size for the laser. It is much bigger then the breadboard and therefore the bluetooth module had to be moved. There was also a problem with structural integrity with the last print, specifically with the part encasing the metal rod. When printing, the holes warped and there was little connecting them to the rest of the module. This has been fixed by changing the hollow cylinders to rectangles with circular holes.

January 26:

This past week I was able to save some space and move all the wiring on the breadboard, over to an sd card shield. The shield will store the locations onto the sd card incase the phone is not available. This will allow for a sort of "offline mode" for the device.

February 3:

The past week was spent modifying the housing and working on the attachment method to a car. I was also able to get in touch with someone working for the city. I will be able to attach the prototype to a car somewhere in the near future.

February 11:

This past week a new problem came into fruition related to the stepper. The past week was spent changing the CAD file, working on wiring, and figuring out how to get the stepper to move. The gear and tread that came with it were a bit small but new, 3D printed ones will be printed.

February 19:

Work on the stepper continued as it has yet to turn. Multiple variations of code have been tried as the wiring seems to be fine. The driver is correctly wired but there may be problems with the wiring from the driver to the stepper instead of from the arduino to the driver.

February 27:

The wiring from the driver to the stepper was incorrect. The stepper is now capable of turning in one direction, but seems to freeze whenever it attempts to go the other direction. I suspect that there is a specific method to change the direction from the code that is not correctly done.

March 9:

The stepper, which used to turn in only one direction, is now capable of turning in two directions. The driver was missing a ground wire, keeping it from turning in both directions. However, the stepper does not turn quickly while printing to a serial monitor.