Hoverbear Log
Contents
Week of March 31st
April 3rd
12:00pm - 1:00pm: Michael worked on modifying the code the work with just two ultrasonic distance sensors and worked on fixing a problem with the way the servo motor does turning. He also tested the new fan and determined that it is completely useless as far as being able to steer the hovercraft.
5:00pm - 7:00pm: Michael got the code working fully with two ultrasonic distance sensors and the servo motor. As far as basic obstacle avoidance is concerned, the only thing left to do would be to get a fan attached to the servo motor, and possibly make adjustments to the servo motor code based on the weight of the fan we end up using.
April 2nd
6:00pm - 7:00pm: Lucas researched Pulse Width Modulation and considered how to use PWM in the hovercraft.
April 1st
12:00pm - 1:00pm: Lucas widened the holes in the base.
7:30pm - 9:35pm: Lucas made a circuit diagram and calculated how much power is required to make the hovercraft.
7:30pm - 9:45pm: Michael added some new stuff to the code.
Spec sheet for Ultrasonic Distance Sensors
March 31st
10:00-11:00am: James went to mail center for battery and store for poster. Planning on going in to shop for several hours this afternoon.
3:30pm - 4:00pm: Lucas went to the shop and bought some materials to continue making things.
4:00pm - 5:30pm: Lucas did some research to find a way for the Arduino to power the Delta Fan. He concluded that the use of an MJE1102 NPN Transistor will be strong enough to amplify the current to do so. He made these deductions using this Stack Exchange Pageof a person who had a similar problem and this data sheet of the MJE1102 NPN Transistor. After doing research, he found the transistor in the lab and put in the locker.
6:00 - 8:00pm: James went in to shop; created back up original frame; continued working on tutorial -> got info from Michael. James found other fan, did express shipping so it will be here tomorrow, then second battery and push fan will be here.
6:00 - 9:00pm: Michael spoke with James and got him up to date on the progress Michael had made on the servo motor + ultrasonic distance sensor code, then did a bit of tinkering around with the code that is finished currently.
Week of March 24th
March 30th
8:30pm - 9:00pm: Lucas did some research and found an Instructable of two Ultrasonic Distance Sensors controlling a motor. He also went on the Github and added some comments to make the coding more understandable.
March 28th
2:00 - 3:30pm: James continued work on tutorial and did some on presentation.
March 27th
3:15pm - 4:45pm: Lucas widened the holes on the bottom base. A test was not able to be done because the battery broke. The next time a test is able to be done and if the Hovercraft is still unable to make significant lift, we will revert back to a plastic bottom base. He also made some diagrams for the Final Proposal.
March 26th
1:30pm - 4:00pm: Lucas added more holes to the bottom base and remade the middle base. The Hovercraft was still unable to attain any lift. Will try to add more holes later. 2:15 pm - 4:00pm: James worked on tutorial in the work shop
March 25th
10:00 pm - 11:00 pm: James looked at different tutorials to see what and how to create ours. He also researched the "air hockey puck" design and its feasibility.
Goals
Lucas will be working on the physical design of the hovercraft, specifically the base. He will also start looking at some of the coding and discussing it with Michael.
Other Notes: I have an exam on Thursday, so I may be less available on that day. Luckily, I do not have an exam this week, so I will try to work on the project on Tuesday.
Michael will be
James will be working on tutorial and final presentation
Monday, March 25th
12:15pm - 1:00pm: Lucas began remaking the bottom base of the hovercraft. Later, he will drill holes into the base.
3:00pm - 3:45pm: Lucas updated the Hoverbear page to reflect new materials, challenges, and logistics.
7:00pm - 10:30pm: Michael did more work coding with the servo motors and ultrasonic distance sensors.
7:30pm - 9:00pm: Lucas added holes to the bottom base of the hovercraft. Tomorrow, he fix the middle base of the hovercraft.
Week of March 17th
March 22nd
3:30pm - 5:30pm: Lucas took the casing off the battery and tried adding more holes to the bottom of the base. The hovercraft still has trouble getting a lot of lift. Will need to talk to the group about changing the way the base is designed to get more lift without making it unstable.
March 21st
11:00am - 11:40am: James fetched the last of the items for the hoverbear
March 21st
12:00am - 12:15am: Michael did some work on the wiki, including uploading the video of the servo motor and ultrasonic distance sensor working in tandem.
March 20th
9:00pm - 10:15pm: James and Michael met to go over servo motor functionality.
March 19th
4:00pm - 4:15pm: Michael added some stuff to the log and cleaned up some of the older stuff.
7:00pm - 10:00pm: Lucas took off some weight of the Hoverbear, added some more holes, and hot-glued the delta fan to the base. The Hoverbear now gets a slight lift, but it is dependent on the surface below it. When Lucas works next, he plans to explore taking off the casing of the battery to decrease the weight of the hovercraft.
8:00pm - 10:30pm: Michael wrote some code for the servo motor, and got it working in conjunction with the ultrasonic distance sensor. The video will be here: (or at least will be once Michael gets around to uploading it).
March 18
6:00pm - 6:30pm: James bought drive fan for the back as well as more servo motors.
6:00pm - 8:30pm: Michael tinkered around with the ultrasonic distance sensor and wrote a code to get it to detect what is in front of it with the help of an online code, and also did a lot of the groundwork for when the additional ultrasonic distance sensors and servo motors will be added in by writing and testing placeholder methods.
7:00pm - 10:15pm: James worked on new Hoverbear base design. However, the new design will not get off ground so another route might need to be explored. Tomorrow he will try to find plastic cardboard to in an alternative base design.
7:00pm - 10:00pm: Lucas worked on the hoverbear design with James. Tomorrow, Lucas will try to optimize the design by taking off any extra weight, etc.
8:30pm - 10:15pm: Michael helped work on the Hoverbear base design and build, and uploaded a working ultrasonic distance sensor code.
Goals for the week:
- Monday: Base will be finished
- Tuesday: Sensors should be able to notice something in front of them and send a signal to something else
Week of March 3rd
March 9
12:00pm - 2:30pm: Lucas and James worked together through Facetime. While Lucas worked on some coding, James created a base for the hovercraft and attached fan. Craft had a little bit of lift. Then, Lucas guided James through creating a skirt for the craft. When the skirt was added, much more lift was achieved. James made a video of the craft gaining lift and added it to the log.
March 7
10:00pm - 10:30pm: Lucas, Michael, and James met. Lucas gave James the Delta Fan and other physical materials. Lucas filled out the Midterm Assessment. 2:50pm - 3:30pm: Lucas added a video section to the main page of Hoverbear and worked on coding.
March 6
5:00pm - 6:00pm: Michael identified possible bases to use for the hoverboard from the library, waited for a second opinion on his choices, then delivered the poster board to Lopata.
11:00pm - 11:30pm: Lucas added code to Github.
March 4
8:00pm - 9:00pm: James and Lucas tested out the Talentcell with the Delta Fan. At half charge, the Delta Fan was able to lift slightly (less than .25 cm) off the ground. Lucas spent the rest of the time exploring shedding weight off of the Delta Fan.
3:00pm - 3:30pm: James went to Hitzeman to get the battery. It arrived, and will be brought to Lucas later.
12:30pm - 12:45pm: Michael did some research online to try and find a suitable piece of cardboard that doesn't cost $30 in shipping.
9:00am - 9:30am: James went to Hitzeman to get the battery, it still was not there due to some problems with shipping.
9:45am - 10:15am: Lucas organized the budget and put it into table form so it can be easier to read on the main wiki page for the Hoverbear Log. I'll try to update the pi-graph before Spring Break.
March 3
9:00pm - 9:15pm: Lucas and James called on the phone. James says he can work on the Hoverbear on Saturday and part of Sunday since he is leaving for Spring Break a little late. I'll give back the Delta fan and Ultrasonic Distance Sensor to him before then so he has the materials he needs to do so.
March 2
10:00 am - 11:15am: James went to Hitzeman multiple time trying to get battery but not there.
Week of February 24th
February 26
3:00pm - 3:45pm: Lucas found a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery that was under the price of $30.00, 12V, 3,000mAh, and USB portable.
February 27
4:30pm - 5:00pm: Michael worked on the nightlight box design, but realized that more specific dimensions may be needed to more precisely locate where the holes would need to be placed for the photoresistor, switch and LEDs.
February 25
12:30pm - 12:45pm: Michael took dimensions of the nightlight to be able to better build the box
8:00pm - 8:30pm: Lucas received one Delta fan, the servomotors, and one Ultrasonic Distance Sensor from James. Lucas found some code online that tests the Ultrasonic Distance Sensor and repeatedly outputs the closest object. The Ultrasonic Distance Sensor worked as expected when connected to an Arduino with the uploaded code.
February 24
3:30pm - 5:30pm: James went out and met with a battery professional at batteries + bulbs but came up empty-handed. We will go out again a day this week to get the battery but at least the other parts have been received at the mail center.
3:00pm - 3:30pm: Lucas researched coding for the Ultrasonic Distance Sensor.
Week of February 17th
February 23
11:00am - 12:00pm: The materials, not including the battery and cardboard, were picked up from Hitzeman.
February 18
12:30pm - 12:45pm, 2:00pm - 2:30pm: Michael added the finishing touches to the "blinky" code, took video and uploaded both of these things to the github repository.
February 17
8:30pm - 9:15pm: Michael wrote a blink code for the Arduino and made a bunch of small changes to the log.
Tentative goals for the coming week: Take the measurements for the nightlight case and build it in SolidWorks, get presentation approved, order parts for the project.
February 16
1:00pm - 4:00pm: Lucas took time to learn Arduino programming language.
Week of February 10th
February 15
3:00pm - 4:00pm: Lucas, Michael, and James met at class and listened to presentations.
4:00pm - 4:45pm: Lucas re-re-refinalized the budget.
4:00pm - 5:30pm: Michael soldered the nightlight successfully. Pictures of the nightlight circuit can be found here: [1].
February 12
8:00pm - 8:30pm: Lucas found a possible 12V battery to add to the budget.
7:00pm - 8:00pm: Lucas, Michael, and James met together and organized the wiki.
3:00pm - 4:00pm: Lucas worked on the budget and put a pie graph of the budget onto the main Hoverbear page as well as the preliminary presentation and added to the log.
7:00pm - 8:00pm: Michael worked on the log and tinkered with some settings and formatting (apparently trying to get hyperlinks to display other text doesn't work), uploaded the new circuit board diagram, and helped other group members with a few minor things.
February 11
5:00pm - 5:30pm: Michael created the updated version of the circuit board diagram which better reflects the fact that the nightlight components are being soldered into a perf board and not a breadboard. This newer file can be seen to the right.
6:00pm - 8:15pm: James worked on the preliminary presentation.
Michael uploaded the circuit diagram for the night light that was made on the previous day. This file is no longer up to date, but if you wish to see it, it can be viewed here: [2]
Week of February 3rd
February 10th
7:00pm - 9:15pm: James made the Gantt chart.
8:30pm - 9:30pm: Michael drew up a circuit diagram.
February 9th
4:00pm - 4:45pm: Lucas edited the presentation for the preliminary group presentation.
February 7th
5:00pm - 6:00pm: Michael and Lucas met together to establish a rough template of the preliminary group presentation and also organized the main page. James took some time to meet up and they talked about potential goals for the coming week. Michael will finish the perf board diagram.
February 6th
5:00pm - 5:30pm: Our group met with Professor Feher and discussed where we are at currently in terms of the nightlight and the hoverboard and how we can proceed from our current position. We have a video of the breadboard working, but the file type (.3gp) was not compatible with the wiki, and the converter I tried using added a massive watermark that obscured the contents of the video, so for the time being there is no video.
8:00pm - 9:00pm: Michael worked the basic formatting for the wiki page and edited and expanded the group log.
11:15pm - 11:30pm: Michael attempted to get the video uploaded to the wiki for a bit before deciding that the best course of action would be to simply re-record at a future point in time.
February 4th
7:00pm - 8:30pm: Our group completed the nightlight circuit, and established some tentative future meeting times.
February 2nd
1:15pm - 1:45pm: Our group worked on the project proposal and discussed whether to use a Raspberry Pi or Arduino.
Week of January 27th
February 1
3:00pm - 4:00pm: In class, our group received all of the pieces needed to create a working nightlight circuit. We set up a time to work on the nightlight and assigned James to work on the budget and project proposal.
January 28
10:00pm - 11:00pm: Our group met at Umrath House to establish what our project should be. We came to the conclusion that we would make a hoverboard of some sort that would be able to maneuver around obstacles.
12:00pm - 12:30pm: Our group met with Professor Feher in Urbauer Hall 015, where we discussed what we would be doing. We will be spending a decent number of our future meetings.
