Spring 2018 - Spartan Superway Small-Scale Controls Team

This week, we have mounted our rapid prototype to a backing plate. This plate contains an Arduino mega, breadboard, servo, and motor which we can use in our prototype commands code. Creating this solid prototype for our system allows us to transport the system without dismantling it every time. Next week we will be getting ready for our third and final presentation for this semester. Today we watched many of the full-scale groups present. Most of the groups had a fairly finalized concept/model for their project.

This week, we finally got Xbee communication open from a computer-stationed master Xbee and an Arduino-mounted slave Xbee. With this combination, we are able to send instructions to the Arduino, which can then use the instructions to locate and travel to the correct location. As of now, we have the Arduino, Xbee, motors, servo, and RFID reader connected with a breadboard. In the upcoming week, we will be working to make a more solid rapid prototype model that we will be able to use for presentation.

This week, all of our Xbee modules came in so we are trying to get them to communicate. First we opened communication between two master Xbee modules connected directly to a computer. Then we tried to communicate between Xbee and Arduino. We were unable to pass legible messages between the two, however, we were able to send basic signals. This showed us that the messages were being sent and received, but that there were some settings that needed to be changed. Next week, we will be working to get Xbee to send legible messages to the Arduino and trying to schedule a meeting with our new Computer Engineering partner.

This week's meeting consisted of a quick recap of where we're all supposed to be in terms of our progress, and free time for all subgroups to work on their projects. Many of our components that we ordered arrived, therefore we were able to begin setting up our rapid prototype. We were able to test all the RFID tags and note their unique ID's, begin setting up our breadboard with our components (start/terminate buttons, servo, RFID reader, etc.), work on soldering the pins for our motor driver, and attaching an encoder to our new DC motors that came in.