Zesty Vesty Weekly Log

Project Page

Link to project page

Week One: September 3

9/04 1hr – Preliminary Idea Meeting

• All group discussed ideas we might be interested in pursuing along with feasibilities.
• Discussed the idea of an internet-connected, sensing, alarm clock that could provide useful morning data

9/06 1 hr - Second Meeting

• We made our wiki page and weekly log page
• Finalized our project idea: The Dorm Buddy
• Discussed goals for our “dorm buddy”:

Week Two: September 9

9/10 - Meeting with Professor Feher and TA Chance

• Discussed project idea
• Polished wikis
• Discussed night light

9/12 - Group Meeting to Finalize Idea

• honed our idea of making a "dorm buddy"
• came up with a more detailed project outline
• discussed our personal goals (what we specifically want to get out of the project), and features we were most interested in having in our creation

9/12 - Meeting with Pro

9/14 - Meeting with Professor Feher and TA Chance from 2:10-3:00 pm

9/15 - Began construction of the circuit and designed the case for the night light from 2:00-5:30m

Week Three: September 16

9/15-9/16 - Brainstormed and Researched Individually: 1 hour

• We continued brainstorming project ideas and di research on other items on the market
• Recorded in shared google doc

9/18 - Conference Call to Discuss Project Idea : 9:00-10:30 pm

• Discussed themes of our idea: safety, personal health, fun
• Ended with our default idea being an IoT Light Jacket
• Decided on the use of Raspberry Pi as our go to system for the project
• Over Particle photon due to its greater versatility including bluetooth application

9/20 - Meeting to work on Gantt Chart and Budget: 9:00-10:00 am, evening

• worked on Gantt Chart
• developed a list of things we need to buy
• finalized the specifics of our project
• started work on project proposal presentation
• worked individually on project proposal
• Kenneth: budget
• Gillian: Gantt Chart
• Andre: Project Proposal

9/21 - Finalizing Project Proposal: 12:30 - 2:00

• Gillian finalized project proposal
• Kenneth soldered night light circuit

9/21 - Weekly Meeting with Prof. Feher and Chance: 1 hour

• discussed final project idea
• set goals for week four

Week Four: September 23

9/25 - Working on Presentation and Finalizing Budget: 1.5 hours

• Gillian: presentation work
• Kenneth: finalizing design for night light case

9/26- Basic Setting up of Pi: 1 hour

• Gillian: set up pi and downloaded latest version of stretch
• Created project Github
• Andre: Researched various methods for sensory data collection-2 hours

9/27 - Continuing Set Up of Pi and Printing Night Light: 2 Hours

• Gillian: continued setting up pi and researching similar pi project libraries (links on project page)
• Kenneth: worked on 3D printing shell for night light
• Andre: Continued researching sensory data collection for vest-1 hour

9/28 – "Finishing Proposal"

• Kenneth: Completed budget / research communication further – 1.25 hour

Goals for Next Week:

• Be able to ssh into pi
• Make sure all materials have been ordered
• Make sure basic pi circuit is functioning
• Finish night light
• Make sure everybody is comfortable using pi
• Establish method that we will work together for the rest of the project (working alone and adding notes to google drive, finding times to work together, etc)

Week Five: September 30

9/29 - Continuing Work on Pi: 2 Hours

• Gillian worked on pi to try to ssh, but encountered some issues that required software installation which took a while.
• Currently still facing problems logging in.

9/29 - "Printing Night Light: 30 minutes"

• Kenneth spent 3 hours trying to configure his annoying printer to work properly
• ~about half an hour was dedicated to the night light file.

9/30 - Continuing fixing the Pi: 1 hour, 15 minutes

• Kenneth came to lab to try and fix pi. Unsuccessful.

10/1 - Continuing fixing the Pi: 1 hour 30 minutes

• Gillian and Chance fixed the pi issue

10/2 - Gillian working in Lab: 1 hour 30 minutes

• can successfully ssh into pi
• tried multiple times to get the email to send with the IP address, unsuccessful

10/2 – Kenneth finishing Night light: 30 minutes

• had to re-solder battery connections and assemble ()

10/2 - Brief Check-in with project group: 15 minutes

• updated everyone on progress
• Andre is going to put his notes about sensors in the google drive
• Gillian is going to show Kenneth and Andre how to operate the pi
• ALL materials have been ordered. Vest is in locker

10/3 - Gillian continued work in lab: 1hour, 30 minutes

• Couldnt figure out how to install ssmpt on pi, so sent Jim an email
• Without ssmpt, cannot send email with IP address
• Looked into installing VNC, but Gillian doesn't have space on personal computer to install (if Kenneth and Andre do though, she can walk them through how to do so)
• Created GitHub for project, and cloned the repo to the pi
• Found code from project that Gillian tried to get to the pi, download failed, will try again later when she has more time

10/3 - Kenneth finished ordering all components: 30 minutes

• Researching the LED Light Matrix and its connector to the pi.
• Ordered correct matrix and connector(bonnet)
• ALL COMPONENTS ORDERED

10/4: Gillian continued work in the lab: 1 hour

• connected pi with filezilla
• having trouble cloning the github repo to pi, didn't want to spend too much time troubleshooting that so will do that later.
• wrote two python programs which can control 1) a blinking LED (blinking.py), and 2) a light (lightcontroller.py). I don't have the breadboard or an LED so I couldn't actually hook up the circuit, but the code should work! I commented the source at the top of both codes if Andre/Kenneth would like to reference that.
• I've been having trouble installing some of the packages of code, so I have a sinking feeling that something may be wrong there. I have attached a screenshot of the error message I get when I go to "sudo apt-get update"

10/5: "Basic circuits with the Pi: 2 hours 30 min"

• Kenneth completed the blinking light circuit with a sample breadboard and implementing Gillian's blink code (pin 8)
• Kenneth worked at creating a potentiometer circuit that displays analog data to the serial monitor .
• Following this tutorial Potentiometer Circ.

Week Six: October 7

Goals for Week Six:

• Let’s meet 2x/week
• Finalize ordering things: DONE
• Look up sound sensing thing for raspberry pi: ANDRE
• Buy correct version: ANDRE
• Make a block diagram (power, setup, accessories) KENNETH
• Make circuit diagrams for the sensors
• Resolve pi issues (updating errors, emailing IP address) GILLIAN
• Potentiometer circuit GILLIAN/KENNETH
• Figure out what we are going to do with the LED
• Reach: how to use phone and bluetooth GILLIAN (started looking into this, decided it would be more worthwhile to work on other things)

10/9: Andre continued research of sensors: 2 hours

10/10: Kenneth found other resources: 30 min

• Talked to his bother about the project and discussed a similar project that he had done lighting his band trumpet.
• His brother's project consisted of two series of LED light strip that are interactive: including a mode that increases the number of lights shining with the volume of the the environment around it.
• Following his approach to sound sensing and light interaction, we can have a good sense of direction.
• Andre began preliminary design for circuits in vest: 45 minutes

10/11: Gillian working in Lab: 3 hours

• Note from Gillian: Sorry I haven't put in much time this week, I had 3 midterms and so many other things going on. I will be in town on Monday and Tuesday of fall break, and plan on spending a lot of time in the lab making up for my lack of hours this week.
• Power supply for pi: 5V battery pack that supply 2A would be ideal. Kenneth said he had a battery pack so he is checking that would work.
• The light matrix required 5V and up to 4A to power. The pi cannot power the light matrix in itself because of high currents. How do we want to power the light matrix?
• the auxiliary LED light strips require 12V of battery
• pi: still having issues updating it. Issue was addressed as a wifi problem. I still cannot install ssmpt to send emails with the IP address. Hopefully will get to spend some time with Jim tomorrow troubleshooting this.
• Python code for potentiometer circuit is complete and in the "zestyfiles" folder on the pi.
• all of the python code from one of the libraries is on the pi, director /home/pi/lightshowpi. I'm hoping once we get the light matrix soldered to the pi, we can run these scripts to display things on the light matrix.
• Started working on block diagram, it's in the google drive.
• Started working on getting the AD converter working.

10/11: Kenneth working on the Block Diagram: 2 hours 30 min

• Mainly researching the battery system and how to power the entire circuit
• Both pi and light board require 5v which is perfect for a battery pack I have
• The pi matches with a micro usb connection, but the battery takes two prongs
• Learning how to operate with the LED matrix board

Power Connection Info

10/12: Kenneth finished a Draft of the Block Diagram and began light matrix: 2hr

• Diagram included two outputs directly from the 5v 2.1A battery pack
• Light matrix connecting through barrel plug
• Discussed the rigidity of the light matrix and formulated plan for structure
• Tried light matrix powered through LED matrix controller on pi

10/12: In Lab – 1 hr

• Gillian and Kenneth got potentiometer – A/D converter test circuit working!
• outputs data on a clock cycle (set at ~ every second)
• demonstrates output in brightness of a sample light
• Gillian got email from pi working!
• Andre researched analog sound sensors
• Kenneth continued figuring out the light matrix with the pi

Goals for Week Seven:

• solder light matrix to pi
• start displaying things on the light matrix
• get everything hooked up to pi

Week Seven: October 14

Fall Break To-Dos:

• circuit for sound sensor
• code for sound sensor
• get github set up (DONE)
• figure out how to address bendy light matrix
• get the matrix board to light up

NOTICE: Slight change in project path. Rather than attaching other sensors, will be using ACCELEROMETER

Things to do

• Kenneth: find usb to correct barrel connector
• kenneth: design a frame for the light matrix
• all: budget document
• all: get the matrix running (order new part to power the matrix)
• Andre: Find exact model of sound sensor needed **
• Andre: get the temperature sensor running (get an analog sensor outputting data
• Andre: starting to figure out what we want to output on the board
• Andre: get the old raspi working
• Andre: find a sound sensor that can react to music/beats

10/15: Everybody working in lab: 3 hours

• adapted light matrix to higher quality mode through soldering bonnet
• Ready to start displaying things on the light matrix, right now all we need is a power source (configured light matrix, part has been ordered)
• Got sound sensor circuit set up, however missing sound sensor, going to try with temperature circuit
• Ran pi powered by mobile battery pack, WORKS!
• Kenneth: started brainstorming / planning light board structure support
• Gillian has a question about the Github
• Gillian: going to work on outputting a GIF on the LED matrix
• resource page created: will add to project wiki soon!

"10/15: Kenneth in lab: 1 hr"

• Confirmed correct measurement of barrel plug size
• Ordered usb to barrel plug converter, which will hopefully allow the matrix to be powered
• Found example of the Light matrix working with accelerometer:

Adafruit Sand Simulator

• organized and set goals

10/15: Andre in lab: 1 hr +30 minutes

• Set up old raspberry pi to test sensor circuit
• Researched a new sound sensor that will react to music and beats

10/17: Kenneth ordered new sound sensor: 30 min

• Discusses with brother the type of sensor he used
• Will be using Electronic Microphone Amplifier
• Sensor will interpret FFT and translate it.

10/18: Gillian and Kenneth working on budget & discussing next steps: 30 minutes

• have had some changes to the budget since starting the project
• all parts have been ordered
• discussion of next steps
• Gillian will go into lab later today to test light matrix since the part arrived yesterday
• Kenneth is starting to design "backbone" for light matrix (he is planning on 3D printing it)
• We added a references section to our project page as well as our block diagram
• Planning on meeting this Sunday to work on the project
• Where are we with the sensor circuits?

10/18: Gillian working on light matrix: 2 and a half hours

• BIG NEWS! Light matrix is up and working!! Gillian took videos :)
• The battery pack is able to power both the pi and led matrix concurrently
• encountering an issue with a couple of the demos (specifically the ones that require all of the lights to be lit)
• working on setting up multimeter to figure out how much current the matrix is drawing, but as of now the power supply shuts off after a few seconds
• important! when running the demos from the link (found on the references page), configure settings by adding this to the end of the command--led-slowdown-gpio=2 --led-rows=32 --led-cols=64
• able to display the text "ESE 205 is fun" on the light matrix, working on displaying an image
• Chance came into lab to help Gillian set up multimeter to read current for light matrix

10/18:

• Andre: Worked on the circuit for the sound sensor in the lab-1 hour 15 minutes
• Andre: Researched Fast Fourier transform and Sound sensing with the pi- 1 hour

10/19: Kenneth researching before meeting- 1 hour

• Kenneth spent an hour researching many possible battery and power options capable of generating 4A without requiring a wall plug.
• Lipo batteries with power converter

10/19: All group met with Instructor and TA – 1 hour

• observed current flow through the LED matrix again
• Decided to stick with same power system and

Goals for Next Week

• REACH: use data from sensors to manipulate things (eg color being displayed on the light matrix)
• all sensors must be working and connected!!!
• learn FFT
• make progress on how to attach matrix to vest
• figure out the power source problem
• luminosity

To dos

• make schematic for light matrix

Week Eight: October 21

10/21:

• Andre' continued to work on circuit design for the sound sensor-3 hours

10/23: Kenneth finished up night light – 1.5 hrs

• Kenneth finished up the circuit diagram
• Fixed system
• Downloaded stl
• Andre' worked on finding the data sheet for the sound sensor model and made a few designs: 2 hours
• Goal: Will hopefully have a design ready to go by the end of the week.

10/24: Gillian came in to lab to do work: 1.5 hours

• github is working. link to repo can be found on project page, and here
• uploaded schematic for pi + matrix setup to project page
• questions: what SPI pin is the sound sensor going to be plugged into? i need this for my code
• started working on code to read in data from potentiometer circuit (and sound sensor), and then print on light matrix

10/24: Kenneth worked in lab: 30 min

• Took measurements of elements with the matrix panel
• Started forming design
• still unsure of how well the connection to the vest material will be

10/24: Brief Pow Wow: 15 minutes

• discuss progress made so far, and plans for the rest of the week

10/25: Gillian continues work on code for light matrix: 2 hours

• understanding the code library we imported by reading the README.md
• added changes to our README
• started to understand how we will use a GUI to call programs. tried to figure out how to get an html page to call a python file using php.
• the majority of the sample files are in c, not python. is there a way we could either 1) convert to python 2)import the readings from the sensor to the file and then just make changes in c and then run the c file?

10/25: Kenneth will work on CADing tonight

File:Frame Design.jpeg

10/25: Andre' will continue to work on the sensor circuit today.

goals for next week

• coordinate sensors with code, make sure its outputting correct data
• have a clear idea of what kind of output we want to display on the light matrix
• get other sensors working
• fft
• update schematic to reflect sensors
• change objectives and proposal
• use python to run terminal commands

Week Nine: October 27

goals for this week

• coordinate sensors with code, make sure its outputting correct data
• have a clear idea of what kind of output we want to display on the light matrix
• get other sensors working
• fft
• update schematic to reflect sensors
• change objectives and proposal
• use python to run terminal commands

10/27: Gillian working in lab: 1 hour, 30 minutes

• note to gillian: you saved your work in testme.py which is currently found in directory /home/pi
• worked on getting python file to run terminal commands. encountered issues bc a lot of the commands run with sudo
• started trying to understand the c++ files, they are very long and sparsely commented so difficult to read

Andre working in the lab: 2 hours

• Worked on getting the sound sensor to produce data. Was unable due to the difference in bonnets for raspberry pi's.
• Goal: Make sure that we have the right code for the sound sensor and are getting data.

10/29 Gillian & Kenneth working in lab: 2 hours

• tried connecting potentiometer circuit to bonnet, but had a few questions for kenneth
• still working on trying to get around the sudoer thing. changes sudo visudo but that didnt help. :\ still couldnt run files without prepending "sudo"
• can kenneth send me anything (code/resource/website) he has on the button we are going to incorporate into our final vest?
• doing research on how to best structure code. started making diagram of how code will be structured, but need to conduct more research before I can complete the diagram.
• Kenneth came in and worked with Gillian on how to hook up sound sensor with the bonnet (encountered issues when connecting to bonnet because not enough available pins)

10/30: Gillian revising the objectives of the project and working on code: 1 hour

Revised Overview: We plan on making a vest that is covered in lights. We are incorporating a sound sensor and an accelerometer so that the lights on the matrix will reflect the users' surroundings.

Revised Objective: Our primary objective is to create a piece of wearable technology that can successfully reflect the users surroundings by displaying different things on the light matrix. We hope our project will be both exciting and engaging. By incorporating sensors into the vest, it will allow the user to have an unexpected and personalized experience. We think that our demonstration at the end of the semester will be visually appealing and will draw in people. We plan of having a button on the vest so that the user can turn the vest on and switch between different modes.

Revised Challenges: We anticipate that we will face challenges coordinating all of the different aspects of the project (the potentiometer circuit, the sensors, reading in data, displaying on light matrix). I will be a challenge to figure out how to read in sensor data and then use that to manipulate the lights/ image displaying on the matrix, particularly because the majority of the code to display on the light matrix is in C++, not python. Additionally, the vest will need to be worn by the user, so we need to make sure that it is both comfortable and practical. This could be difficult given the lights and features we intend on adding to the vest.

10/30: Kenneth and Gillian Troubleshooting Potentiometer Circuit and Sound Sensor: 1 hour

• tried to get potentiometer hooked up with bonnet, but wasn't working so we took off bonnet and tried with original set up
• at first wasn't working, but we think this had to do with poor connection
• plugged in sound sensor, got very sporadic readings, but Ethan (TA) took a look and didn't seem to think anything was wrong
• next steps: figure out how to connect potentiometer to bonnet using available pins, knowing that the potentiometer circuit is working
• next steps: change the rate at which sound sensor is gathering data (?)

10/31: Gillian working on code in lab: 1 hour

• resolved sudo issues by changing sudo visudo
• if Python doesn't run as root, run python files using sudo (e.g. sudo python3 light-matirx)
• if python does run as root, then we're ok
• if still encountering issues, Ethan recommended researching the os package that I import in order to run terminal commands
• added a good resource w/r/t connecting pi and phone w bluetooth and communication between the two to the references section of our page
• successfully connected phone to pi over bluetooth, but that doesn't mean much because the phone doesn't have any way to communicate with the pi
• successfully used python file called "testme.py" to power the light matrix! all you have to do is called the file in the home directory (sudo python3 testme.py) and a square lights up on light matrix (pushed to github)

11/1: Andre worked with Chance on the sound sensor circuit in the lab- 1 hour 15 minutes.

• was able to walk through the adc and spi interface code and gain a better understanding of the circuit.

Week Ten: November 3

To dos:

• revise Gantt chart
• start working on final proposal

11/3 All working in lab

• Gillian: started working on final report, working on connecting raspi to phone
• Andre: worked on building accelerometer circuit
• Kenneth: worked on soldering headers to the pi

11/3 Kenneth continued the CAD 2hrs -difficulty separating the components in order to fit the print bed size

11/5: All working in lab

• Andre worked on getting sound sensor circuit hooked up w Arduino
• gillian: tried to get accelerometer hooked up w bonnet

11/6: Kenneth ordered remaining parts – 2 hours

• ordered usb connectors and capacitors to hook up the Arduino and LED strip to the power bank

11/7: Gillian and Kenneth worked with Chase on troubleshooting – 1hr

• Continued troubleshooting the pi and matrix w/ reinstalling matrix code
• Tested pi and board powered by outlets
• Tested pi with blink code and bonnet on. Works
• Tested connection of wires to board and on bonnet. All work

• For next time: purge all code. Save only the necessary in github

11/8: Gillian and Kenneth Wiped the pi: 2 hours:

• OKAY: so after wiping the pi, I redownloaded all of the light matrix stuff, plugged the matrix in and ran the first demo. The matrix lit up for a few seconds and then died (it did the thing where the whole pi shut down--the issue we had before where it was drawing too much power). I plugged everything back in and went to run a different file that I knew from past experience drew less power, but nothing happened when I went to run it. I went back to try and run the file that worked moments earlier and that didn't cause anything to display either. I got a lot of the same errors today that I got yesterday (when downloading the software and running the demos), so my conclusion is that the issue is the power supply.
• next steps: tomorrow, we need to charge the battery pack. I haven't really charged it since kenneth brought it in weeks ago, and im wondering if the charge lights are not accurately representing the amount of charge.
• I think we need to come up with an alternative way to power the pi + matrix so that we can see if the issue really is the power. The blinking lightning bolt also has been coming up a lot on the pi, which means that the pi isn't getting enough power either.

11/8: Kenneth in Lab: 2 hours:

• Worked with chance on trying to get the matrix working

Week 11: November 11

11/13: Gillian and Tony troubleshooting the pi

• determined the problem is the matrix, not the bonnet or the power supply
• next steps: get sound sensor working with led strips
• get accelerometer working with the pi

11/14: Kenneth and Gillian working in lab

• worked on pivot

11/15: Gillian revised overview

Revised Overview: We plan on making a vest that is covered in LED light strips. We are incorporating a sound sensor and an accelerometer so that the LEDs on the vest will reflect the users' surroundings. We plan on having two different LED light strips so that one light strips reflects data from the sound sensor and the other LED light strip reflects data from the accelerometer.

Revised Objective: Our primary objective is to create a piece of wearable technology that can successfully reflect the users surroundings by displaying different things on the light matrix. We hope our project will be both exciting and engaging. By incorporating sensors into the vest, it will allow the user to have an unexpected and personalized experience. We think that our demonstration at the end of the semester will be visually appealing and will draw in people. We plan of having a button on the vest so that the user can turn the vest on and switch between different modes.

• Understand how to use and program on Arduino
• Understand how the Fast Fourier Transform works
• Have the Arduino reading in data from both sensors
• Connect the LED light strips with both the sensors so that they reflect the data

Revised Challenges: We anticipate that we will face challenges coordinating all of the different aspects of the project (the two sensors and manipulating the LEDs). We plan on using a fast fourier transform from the sound sensor, and because this is a new concept to us, it will take us some time to learn and understand. We were originally going to use a Raspberry Pi as the main component of our project, but in a last-minute pivot, decided to use Arduino. We will have to learn and understand how to use Arduino in a very short amount of time. Additionally, the vest will need to be worn by the user, so we need to make sure that it is both comfortable and practical. This could be difficult given the lights and features we intend on adding to the vest.

Game Plan

• Saturday: get both sensors hooked up with the arduino and the LEDs
• Thanksgiving break: work on the poster and the final write up
• After thanksgiving: hook up LEDs with the vest