It's that time in the project. Time to iterate on the mechanical joint's design, the PCBs and the rest of the mechanical/electrical components like it's nobody's business. As I'm sitting here, waiting for our 6.5 hour 3D print of the smart joint to finish, I figured it would be a good idea to update you (our every so loyal readers) on the most recent developments in the Armari project. First and foremost, we just received our first custom PCB fresh out of the Print Centre's PCB oven. Behold our joint's PCB in all its glory:
After testing it out with our first iteration of the 3D printed joint (see above images), we made some modifications to the joint (making the slots for the LEDs and connectors bigger for a better fit and accessibility, tightening the fit for the PCB, removing the logos for faster and more reliable printing, etc.). It is currently in the process of being re-printed, as previously mentioned. We will also be re-printing the circuit board today as the through-holes for the pogo pins and the solder pads for the connectors were a bit too small.
We are also hoping to submit the design of the small PCB that is intended to go on the Connection Panels (see image bellow).
Yes, I know, we had initially intended to use just target disks rather than a whole PCB, but times change and sometimes target disks end up being much smaller and harder to handle than you thought they'd be. As part of the prototyping process we gotta use the resources available to us to adapt and overcome.
In other news, Deji has been working tirelessly to set up the Raspberry Pi and yesterday succeeded in verifying that his LED control algorithm works. He will be continuing to set up the connection between the Pi and his iPhone. Unfortunately, yellow LEDs proved to be difficult/timely to source and so we have decided to replace them with the green LEDs in order to speed up the prototyping process.
Furthermore, the software team decided to redesign the UI to make the app more minimalistic in order to lessen the learning curve for the user. Also, we have decided to do the machine learning on the phone, since Xamarin, which is being used for the app development, allows us to do so. In other words, the chips on the iPhone are now designed to be used for machine learning so we've decided to take advantage of them.
Lastly, the team has come up with some tentative deadlines to better prepare us for the hustle:
Jan 31: Test the front joint with the PCB and the panel; Re-print the front joint if necessary and if the fit of the front joint is satisfactory, print the back joint.
Feb 1: Finish LED control.
Feb 3: Finish app UI mock-up; Get communication between iPhone and Pi working; Confirm machine learning (ML) model.
Feb 4: Start looking at training models for the clothing detection algorithm.
Feb 8: Finalize Joints and PCB designs.
Feb 9: Achieve functional initialization of clothing items.
Feb 25: Finish 3D printing + machining all components.
Feb 27: Assemble the physical wardrobe.