Smarter Blinds Log

Smarter Blinds Log

Week of January 14

January 18: Met with Jim and TA's to discuss possible project ideas. 1 hour

Week of January 21

January 22: Met as a team and created first draft of project proposal. Decided on the Smarter Blinds idea basing it of off the previous Smart Blinds project. Further research allowed us to discover other similar smart blind projects. 1 hour

January 27: Created project wiki page and started logging our progress and updating our goals. Created our first draft of our budget and started thinking about our Gantt Chart. 1 hour

Week of January 28

January 28: Met as a team with Professor Feher and Michael to discuss progress. Learned how to create Gantt Chart. Discussed possibilities of using either Arduino with a Bluetooth chip or Feather. Received Arduino device. Briefly went over Night Light project. 30 minutes

January 29: Added tasks to Gantt Chart, basing them primarily off of the Gantt chart from the previous Smart Blinds project. Found and reviewed similar smart blinds projects from hackster.io, such as smart blinds that responded to ambient light and heat as well as smart blinds controlled by Blynk. 1 hour

January 30:

• Constructed a budget for the Night Light project using an Excel spreadsheet. 30 minutes
• Met as a team and continued to work on budget for blinds and Gantt Chart. Finalized proposal and added our expected challenges and goals for our project. We will continue to research for our project and make sure we have finalized the budget and have included all of the necessary parts. Next we will work on the Nite Light Project as well. 1 hour.

January 31:

• Finalized Budget by comparing to past projects and cross checking to make sure all of the correct parts were listed. Currently under the budget of $150 dollars. A decision we had to make was if we wanted to use the Arduino Uno and purchase the Adafruit Bluefruit LE UART Friend - Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or use the Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit device. The Feather was priced at $29.95 while the Arduino Uno + Bluefruit Le UART Friend cost a total of $39.50 (22 +19.50 respectively). The Feather is an all in one device with no need for a bluetooth component. However, with our current access to an Arduino Uno and the wide breath of resources available related to the Arduino Uno and blinds, we decided to go with the combination of the UNO and bluetooth component. Both parts are able to connect to the Adafruit app. Further research of the bluetooth component resulted in finding resources on how to attach the bluetooth component to the breadboard by soldering.

In preparation for the Nite Light project more research was conducted on soldering and on how to connect items to a breadboard. Links on how to solder and research done on the bluetooth capabilities was added to the Resources section of the main project page. Soldering is establishing good connections between components and in order to ensure good connections are made, it is important that we know how to solder correctly so that we do not ruin any parts. It is important to not touch the soldering iron for more than 2 seconds so that the part does not over heat. Once the tip is touching the connection then the solder touches the iron and the iron is pulled away leaving a cone like shape of metal on the connection. It is important to do it correctly to avoid a "cold-solder" that can occur. It is also important to have the iron on one side of the wire and then put the solder on the other side of the iron to make a good connection. At the end the solder should be shiny. 1 hour

Week of March 11

Note: Week of Spring Break

Link to Project page

Smarter_Blinds