Weekly Updates

Week 1

Weekly Recap:

  • Throughout the week, we’ve looked over Functional Specification documents from past capstone groups. From that, we captured all the important sections needed to write a full Functional Specifications Report. We were also able to hone in on materials we will need to make our final design. 
  • Attended our Capstone Kickoff:
    • Met with Osterberg to get some feedback on our ideas
    • Met with our industry advisor(s), Kyle and David.

Goals for This Week:

  • Meet with Dr. Mansouri to discuss the following interface specs:
    • Possible LCD monitor displays to use for our game scoring output display
    • ASIC hardware component for the game controller: This will be used to allow the user to control the game and make their Tetris movements. We will either use an FPGA (typically programmed with a HDL, like Verilog) or some other ASIC microcontroller (that can be programmed using an assembly compiler)
  • Ask Dr. Nuxoll about creating a capstone website; would be nice to have some domain to upload all of our documents. 
  • Fulfill our Func. Specs. portions that we’ve delegated in previous meetings
  • Attend our General Capstone meeting this Friday; the agenda that Albright gave us says that this Friday, we will be meeting with Shiley’s lab technicians to go over our facilities and resources. We can ask about key card access here.
  • Meet with Dr. Osterberg to look at past projects and their power supply components

Challenges:

  • Creating a CAD model/drawing for the Func. Spec.
  • Finalizing all hardware components for our final design (I.e. what products we should buy, what methods are more effective, etc.)
  • Creating an over-arching block diagram/development process. It’ll be difficult to determine how much time will be needed for certain processes in our project design (I.e. programming our controllers, testing and debugging, etc.)

Good News:

  • We didn’t meet with the person that had been wanting handicap accessibility among capstone projects; this is good because we can focus on our main objective, would still be cool if we had a colorblind mode

Week 2

Weekly Recap:

  • Could not meet with Dr. Mansouri, she has a limited schedule and we would prefer to not interrupt her when she is busy.
  • Created a Development Block Diagram/Timeline of our project
  • Worked on our Functional Specification document; everything is coming together nicely
  • We are still unsure about capstone websites
  • We met with Christina last Friday to sign lab safety forms for our home base facility: Our designated workspace is in Shiley313 and we now have card access.

Goals for This Week:

  • Meet with Dr. Osterberg to talk about power supply components that the BattleChip team used:
    • 5V 2.5A Raspberry Pi Power Supply?
    • LED power supply?
    • Chip power supply?
  • Ask Dr. Osterberg about possible Raspberry Pi’s or FPGA laying around for us to test our code before we get our own hardware
  • Discuss with Dr. Osterberg about the need for a PCB to clean up our internal wiring
  • Discuss our Development Process with Dr. Osterberg
  • Meet with Dr. Mansouri on Wednesday during her office hours:
    • Look at the BattleChip device and maybe look at the internals?
    • ASIC hardware component for the game controller: This will be used to allow the user to control the game and make their Tetris movements. We will either use an FPGA (typically programmed with a HDL, like Verilog) or some other ASIC microcontroller (that can be programmed using an assembly compiler)
  • Finalize our Functional Specification document by Thursday
  • Get in touch with Kyle Bernard; discuss meeting times and find a time to tour Tektroniks.

Challenges:

  • Creating a CAD model/drawing for the Func. Spec.
  • Finalizing all hardware components for our final design (I.e. what products we should buy, what methods are more effective, etc.)

Week 3

Weekly Recap:

  • Finished our Functional Specification Document
  • Had our General EE Capstone Meeting; attained access to Shiley Lab 306.
  • Met with Lisa and talked about finalized our budget (everything due on a spreadsheet)
  • Decided on a Zynq 7010: contains 16MB Flash memory with 58 pins and allows expansion for more external pins/memory
    • Will be programming at the assembler level: using a C-style programming and direct memory accessibility, we hope efficiency between ports is optimized

Goals for This Week:

  • Check out an FPGA with Dr. Mansouri and begin programming (Note: consider constraints and compare between our actual FPGA to the one we will be testing with)
  • Prepare for Friday’s presentations; discuss talking points and presentation layout
  • Have our resumes’ built and ready by Friday. Prepare for our mock interviews.
  • Get in touch with Kyle Bernard; discuss meeting times and find a time to tour Tektroniks.

Challenges:

  • Creating a CAD model/drawing for the Func. Spec.
  • Understanding the assembler and using it to our advantage

Week 4

Weekly Recap:

  • Had our first round of project review presentations
  • Attained an FPGA for testing and programming uses:
    • Begin assembling hardware interface
    • Using MIPS assembly language to create our own “CPU” and RISC architecture
      • We can have our own demo CPU that we made in Verilog and build off of that
      • Use an opensource CPU designed with an HDL
      • Use a MIPS assembly and runtime (MARS)

Goals for This Week:

  • Start on design document and decide on assembly implementation
  • Create all low-level block diagrams, any necessary FSM’s, and create RTL design for documentation

Challenges:

  • Understanding the assembler and using it to our advantage
  • Keeping constraints in mind throughout program development

Week 5

Weekly Recap:

  • Had our mock interviews (Ask Osterberg about feedback)
  • Website about to be up and running (Kyle will explain what’s happening)
    • Will be able to upload any drafts/diagrams for review
  • Partitioned assembly/FSM/program blocks among team members
    • Reviewed knowledge and notes from Embedded Systems course and our Mastermind Code
    • Game interface components are in blocks, each member assigned to important blocks and creating a suitable program for each block

Goals for This Week:

  • Start on design document and decide on assembly implementation
  • Work on all low-level block diagrams, any necessary FSM’s, and create RTL design for documentation
  • Begin programming

Challenges:

  • Understanding the assembler and using it to our advantage
  • Keeping constraints in mind throughout program development

Fall Break

Week 6

Weekly Recap:

  • Fall break was great and somewhat productive
    • May have to use an HDL instead of an assembly language
    • Licensing issues and getting around the zedboard’s synthesis utility
  • Website about to be finished

Goals for This Week:

  • Start on design document and decide on assembly implementation
  • Combine our designs and diagrams, implement them onto the FPGA

Challenges:

  • Finding an assembler, if possible
  • Keeping constraints in mind throughout program development

Week 7

Weekly Recap:  

  • Completed and submitted design document; will also be posted to our website 
  • Received some parts to begin testing; LED matrix, matrix driver, and an sd card to store our program (Spent $111.13 of our $500 budget) 
  • Borrowed a Raspberry Pi 3 from Shiley School of Engineering for testing and programming  

Goals for This Week:  

  • Come up with a functional test program; compile all of our program blocks 
  • Begin thinking about November Project Reviews (11.15.2019) 
  • Order more parts (I.e. buttons and switches)
  • Finalize materials needed to create final device (I.e PCB, material for casing, etc.)  

Challenges:  

  • Meeting our expected Thanksgiving deadline 

Week 8

Weekly Recap:  

  • We bought and have received our LED Matrix board, our Raspberry Controller 
  • We bought and will receive our LED buttons, and another 5V DC power supply 
  • Assigned out parts for the upcoming November Project Review 
  • Performed some soldering on the LED Matrix HAT
  • Updated the design document to version 0.95 

Goals for This Week:   

  • Finish and submit our Design Document 1.0  
  • Finish and present our November Project Review  
  • Test the LED Matrix and Matrix HAT once we receive the power supply
  • Start uploading our individual parts to the Raspberry Pi 
  • Find and order a joystick 

Challenges:   

  • Meeting our expected Thanksgiving deadline

Week 9

Weekly Recap:  

  • Design document is nearly completed.  
  • Worked on our poster; will be ready for tomorrow. 
  • Testing our hardware components to determine how many pins we will be needing 

Goals for This Week:  

  • Come up with a functional test program to show Dr. Osterberg 
  • Prepare for the winter showcase 
  • Finalize ordering materials to have a fully working game 

Winter Break

Week 10

 Recap:  

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Chadler and Riley have moved to focus on the construction of the game casing 
    • We are finalizing the design of case 
      • Met with Jared to do shop training  
      • Remeasured parts to get exact measurements for case drawing 
      • Tentatively decided on Acrylic material to keep retro-like theme Chad & Riley 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Austin and Kyle will be focusing on the software design and user interface. 
    • We are currently setting up the button and game interface 
      • Button/Joystick controls were received in the mail 
      • For temporary uses, keyboard input will be used for game interaction until buttons have been initialized

Goals for This Week:   

  • Chad & Riley
    • Finish our design of the case and bring to Jared for look-over  
    • Finalize what material we will use and then order material 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Learn matrix rotation for rotating a piece 
    • Have general game interface finished; the user should be able to place and stack Tetris blocks 

Challenges:   

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Deciding on material 
      • Acrylic vs Wood 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Button interface 
      • Buttons/Joystick require different power inputs 

Week 11

 Recap:

  • Chad & Riley
    • We are finalizing the design of case
      • Decided to use acrylic material
      • Finalized hand-drawn measurements
  • Austin & Kyle
    • Buttons work, however, the pin extender we have will be needed to allow joystick control

Goals for This Week:  

  • Chad & Riley
    • Build cardboard model to get rough idea of actual look
    • Transfer measurements over to SolidWorks drawing
    • Order acrylic material
      • Pick out color scheme
  • Austin & Kyle
    • Use the pin extender chip to allow joystick usage
    • Have the game ready by Friday, functionality works but Tetris game rules are still in the making

Challenges:  

  • Chad & Riley
    • Confirming that the measurements are what we want
    • Obtaining material
  • Austin & Kyle
    • Using the pin extender

Week 12

 Recap:  

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Created cardboard model of our casing 
    • Started editing SolidWorks drawing 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • User input interface is now functioning 

Goals for This Week:   

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Order acrylic material 
    • Finish SolidWorks Drawing 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Create “clear row” functionality for the game 

Challenges:   

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Obtaining material  
    • Internal Wiring 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Staying on schedule 

Week 13

 Recap:  

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Worked on CAD drawing 
    • Visited TAP Plastics 
    • Browsed selection and got quotes to bring back to team 
    • Talked to shop technicians to finalize order details 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Tetris blocks are generated 
    • Blocks can be moved and rotated 
    • Rows can be cleared    

Goals for This Week:

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Finish up drawing  
    • Order and receive parts 
    • Start Cutting Pieces 
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Ensure Tetris block pieces do not overlap each other  

Challenges:   

  • Chad & Riley 
    • Adding power supply hole and back panel screws in design  
  • Austin & Kyle 
    • Software bugs