✔️Week 18: Project Development

What tasks have been completed and what remain

Completed: - Design and fabricate body
- Design and fabricate suspension arm
- Design and fabricate pico boards
- Design top cover
- PID control implemented
- UART messages sent between boards
- suspension arm actuation

Remaining:
- Fabricate top cover
- Make suspension arem more robust
- Get Pi 4 to control Picos via UART
- Detect keystrokes from keyboard
- Clean up wiring and neat-ify everything
- Re-design motor mounts for gears (they keep slipping)

What works and what hasnt

There have been a lot of things that are working, I'm glad that the suspension arm actuation works in a very primitive example, I've got hope for it after much worrying. The motors are very responsive and regulating them to test speeds has been great. The whole project has been super easy to work on as well, 2 m6 bolts can remove any major piece, and its easy to put back together. The pico breakout boards have been fantastic as well, they have made it fool-proof to plug in wiring looms. Integration has been the easiest by far on any project because I have been so adamant on it and taking small steps with incremental integration.

But some things haven't been working out, mainly the motor hubs, they have been slipping on the shafts and have been a nightmare. I have also had some issues with the copper on the milled pcb peeling and snapping off, so ive taped it down to try and prevent any further damage or peeling. More has been working than not working though.

what questions need to be resolved

I still dont know how many features I can add to this thing, im getting a clearer image of "not many" but im still keeping up hope.
The legs are still in early testing and I have some worries they might not work in the end.
I also havent made the top cover so I dont know how well all of this is going to clean up, how well will things be hidden?
And because I dont know to what extent the legs will work, I don't know how much personality I can give it.

what will happen when?

I feel like its all going to happen soon. I have lots of other commitemnts over the next 9 days, but after that I can smash all of these things out and follow my gantt chart from mid-semester review.

what have I learnt?

I have learnt quite a lot so far, all the little things that are difficult to teach. I have been learning the ins and outs of having 2 UART devices on 1 transmition line of a device, and I have realised that I am inching closer and closer to making an I2C device ahahah. I have also learnt that its much cheaper to add a 2nd battery sometimes than adding a voltage regulator. I've also learnt the value of taking time with integration, I always try and run through it as quick as possible but feel like this has hurt me in the past, now I've learnt that the time you spend checking and double checking, and taking baby steps with integration, saves you time. With time being really desperate I think I also really understand the meaning of triage- especially with a project of this size.