Tool Tracker Log

Week 1: January 21-28

This week, we met in class for the second time and were assigned to our project groups. We met briefly to discuss ideas during class, but we did not decide on a final project. Originally, we talked about producing a gadget that could produce a properly portioned protein shake and automatically shake the drink for you. We thought a lot about how practical this idea could be and ultimately decided that the project might be too simple. On Monday, January 22nd, we met outside of class and decided, after much consideration, that we wanted to do an RFID Check-in System. We believe that this project will offer a lot of challenge, but will still be something that we can complete with a lot of research and work.

Week 2: January 28 - February 4

This week, we slightly modified our idea after talking with Nathan. We met with him on February 1st to see the lab for the first time, solidify plans for our project, and talk about our plan for the upcoming week. On February 4th, we met to work on our Wiki page, project proposal, and Gantt Chart. Since nobody in our group has much experience with Raspberry Pi or Arduino, one of our biggest challenges this week was deciding which method to use for our project. We know that there are pros and cons to both of these technologies, so we talked about this with Nathan, but did not reach a final decision.

Week 3: February 4-11

This week, we will continue working on our final project proposal, which is due on Friday of this week. We completed some basic research about RFID technology to get a better understanding of what materials are needed to complete this project. Also, we met with Nathan on Wednesday to discuss our Wiki Page and make sure that our proposal was ready. We split up the parts of this assignment evenly, with some of us working on the budget, the research, the Gantt Chart, etc. Also, during our meeting with Nathan, we decided to use the Raspberry Pi instead of the Arduino, because we know that this will offer more functionality rather than only completing one programmed task, which we will need for our project. Now, we are getting ready to begin more extensive research on programming the Raspberry Pi, and we are also almost ready to place orders for our materials.

Week 4: February 11-18

In class last Friday (February 9th), we received our Raspberry Pi and other hardware components in class. We had a brief discussion/overview of how we should begin to use the Raspberry Pi and set it up so that we can do work on our laptops at home. We met as a group on Sunday (February 11th) for a little over an hour to start working through these tutorials on the class Wiki page. We used the "Set Up and Configure a Raspberry Pi" tutorial to download Raspbian / Etcher and flash the SD card. We also spent our time working on the presentation for our project proposal, which we will be giving this Friday, February 16th. Lastly, we emailed Professor Mell and plan to meet with him on Wednesday at 6:00 pm when we meet with Nathan.

On Monday, we met in the Urbauer lab to connect out Raspberry Pi to the monitor, but we realized after about 30 minutes of trying different tutorials and changing settings on the computer that we were missing a USB power supply cord to connect to our Raspberry Pi. We will try to finish the hardware setup later in the week once we have the cord that we need. We are continuing working on our presentation and plan to meet with Nathan and Professor Mell on Wednesday. At this meeting, we plan to show them our presentation, as well as get advice on how to proceed with the beginning software elements of our project.

On Wednesday, we met as a group with Nathan and Professor Mell. We received the proper USB power supply cord that we will need to finish setting up the Raspberry Pi, which we plan on doing tomorrow (Thursday). We discussed our project in more detail, slightly modifying our plans. We decided that adding a more descriptive and interactive user interface would add more depth to our project. So, rather than using a keypad, we decided that we want to order an LCD Touchscreen Display, which will allow us to create a more interactive user experience and collect/display data in a more useful way. Since we have a lot of room in our budget, we decided that this would work well. We discussed how we plan on splitting up the major component of the user interface programming and many elements of the project that we would like to think about trying. Ideas that we discussed included tracking who has a certain tool, when the tool was checked in/out, the condition of the tool (and potential descriptions from the user if the tool is given a poor rating), how often a tool is used, adding an additional place for an administrator to enter the system to access more data, and more. We also talked about the potential of including images into the database when a user is asked about the condition of the tool, but we are not sure if this is something that we want to/can include at the moment.

On Thursday, we met in the lab to finish setting up the Raspberry Pi. We worked for about an hour and were able to boot the Pi. We were able to get the login working, but we were unable to get the desktop to display. We tried reflashing the SD card and making a new login, but we were still unsuccessful. We looked at tutorials and forums and tried the 'startx' command, but kept receiving messages that the commands were not found. We will try this again later today or tomorrow.

On Friday, we gave our project proposal in class and we plan to meet on Sunday to continue working on the Raspberry Pi.

Week 5: February 18-25

On Sunday, we met in the lab to continue working on the Raspberry Pi. We are still struggling with the login process and have tried everything that we can think of. We are waiting to hear back from Nathan about how to move forward. In the meantime, we looked at the Wiki page for the Gymnastics App Project from a past semester, since many of their project elements are similar to ours. We predict that we will be using the same program in Python to design our user interface.

On Wednesday, Hannah met with Professor Mell to talk about the issues that we were having with the Raspberry Pi, and Professor Mell and Professor Feher explained that we are already logged in and that we should just use the default login. We worked on SSH-ing the Pi with Nathan, but the network was not functioning properly, so for now we will just have to work off of the Pi.

On Friday, we met before class to work on some Python coding. We were able to print 'Hello World!' and did some basic calculations. Eliot Went to lab on Sunday and spent two hours doing the first few basic tutorials found here: https://automatetheboringstuff.com/chapter1/ . Finished up to chapter 3.

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Materials were bought this week and will be arriving between 2/27 and 3/01.

https://nikolak.com/pyqt-qt-designer-getting-started/

ready to SSH, change pswd by typing in

Week 6: February 25-March 4

On Monday, we all met in the lab for two hours to work on more Python and Python QT design tutorials. Eliot focused on more of the Python coding itself, whereas I focused on the PyQT tutorials for the graphical interface. We are going to have to decide if we want to use automatic buttons or create images and then add code that involves coordinates of where someone is interacting with the screen. Some of the tutorials we looked at are posted below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmo8eZG5I2w This is a general tutorial on the layout of the PyQT Designer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRRpbDFnMHI This shows how to open another window when a button is pressed on the interface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y5zjTJ9LV4 This video is a long description of how to set up a login page on the interface.

Most of our materials have arrived on campus, and we plan to start using them this week to set up the RFID chips. For now, we are trying to collect useful tutorials about the interface so that once we have the RFID technology functioning, we are ready to start the coding. Hopefully, in our meeting on Wednesday, we can talk more about the necessary setup for the RFID so that we can get that done before Spring Break.

On Wednesday, we met in the lab before our meeting to work on setting up our display screen and continue working through tutorials. We installed the RFID Reader library so that the coding can work with the Raspberry Pi rather than Arduino, following the tutorial posted in our materials section. We also made a GitHub account so that we can back-up our coding once we begin working on that. The link is posted on our main page. We met with Nathan, and talked about our plan until Spring Break. We plan to have a chip reader working so we know that this is working before we leave for break. We stayed in the lab for about 2/2.5 hours total to work on setting up the parts that we received in the mail, figuring out how to power up the screen, and soldering wires.

On Friday, Zach designed the first 3D model of a prototype console using SolidWorks. Initially, the console was designed as one piece, however, it became clear that it would be very difficult to print the console as a single piece without extensive support material. He decided to split the console into two pieces, a cover and a base, to make the print easier. Currently the console does not meet size requirements, so we are going to print half of the console to figure out how the LCD screen and Raspberry Pi are going to lay in the console. Updates will have to be made to the design so the shield can fit in the console. Below is an assembly of the first console design:

Week 7: March 4-March 11

On Sunday, we spent 2 Hours in the lab working on a variety of things. First, we began designing our initial user interface for the touch screen. We found code to read the RFID chips, but unfortunately could not get them working. We were following this tutorial: https://www.anavi.org/article/210/ . We got the code up and running but ran into an error that said either the reader was not getting enough power or not wired properly. We tried to figure out the wiring and other ways to fix it, one possible solution being buying an older version of the shield that is known to work. We also spent time working on our solid works design for the console. So far, the prototype has been developed and should be able to be printed later this week and fit the screen and wires into it. Our goals for later in the week are to get the RFID reader up and running, getting a prototype printed and the screen working so we have the very base of our project. Some set backs we may face are getting the RFID reader to work, making sure the prototype can house the screen and making sure the screen can have power and we can actually use it.

Here is progress on our hardware setup:

Additionally, we had to change the size to the 3D model. For our first prototype, we will be printing half of the cover and base. The current model is too large to print on the 3D printer. So, we cut the console in half and will be printing out the side that holds the LCD screen. We want to figure out how we are going to house the LCD screen, its components, and the Raspberry Pi before we change the design to fit the RFID reader. The STL and GCode files of the cover and base were sent to Nathan and we are waiting to hear what he says about the overall design and print job. We hope to have these parts printed later this week. Below are screen shots of the parts that were sent to Nathan:

Before break, Nathan gave us updates on the 3D model. We needed to cut down on the model's proportions and make it 'sleeker'. We sent updated models and GCode to Nathan before break. The sleeker models had reduced print time and used less materials than the initial design. The new prototype models are expected to be printed before break and will be used for testing as soon as we get back to campus. The printed models will be used to find out the ideal lay out for the LCD screen hardware and to figure out the ideal way to lay fit the NFC shield into the console. The original design was too large to be printed in the 3D printer. Ideally, we come up with a new design that meets the 3D printer's size requirements and is able to hold all of the console's components. The current plan is to orient the NFC shield to the side of the console so it is able to fit in the new design. We will have more information on the new design once we have the 3D printed models.

Week 8: March 11-March 18

We have been working on the layout of the interface that we are planning to design on PyQT. Even though we don't expect that the pages themselves will be very visually complex, these drafts required thinking about all of the necessary "flow" that we want a user to experience when checking a tool in/out. We know that depending on if they are bringing a tool back or checking one out to use, this should change what is prompted by the screen and the types of information that they are required to give. We anticipate that programming the screen to go from one page to the next based on the input will be challenging. These drafts can be seen below:

Week 9: March 18-March 25

I spent about a half hour researching the latest versions of PyQT and the necessary software that I need to install on my computer in order to use it. I downloaded the Mac version of SIP and PyQT from this website (https://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/download), which gave me 2 folders on my downloaded files, but I need to figure out how to now access the interface platform.

We wanted to have the RFID scanner working before spring break, but we ran into some difficulties before we left. We will definitely attempt to have that done this week, as well as work on fitting the parts into the 3D printed console.

I tried going onto Stack Overflow to look for help about finding PyQt on my computer (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26226730/where-is-qt-designer-app-on-mac-anaconda), but still am having trouble after 45 more minutes of research. I am planning on talking to Nathan tomorrow to work on setting up the designer.

Eliot Spent two hours on Tuesday trying to figure out how to get the shield reader for the RFID chips working, while I found many tutorials for the older model of the shield, I could not find anything for the new model. I also looked over the code again and with all my knowledge it should be able to function, but I will ask Nathan about it to make sure. This is an issue I hope to overcome by spending more time tomorrow researching more about the I/O pins on the PN532 RFID shield. While this problem has not been overcome, the few solutions that are possible are finding a guide with the new shield, figuring out which I/O pins will suffice instead of RX and TX, finding an error in the code, or purchasing the old model of the shield (https://www.adafruit.com/product/364) which was out of stock before spring break but is now in stock.