Week 3:
So far, we have met with our client, Dr. Morgan, who explained some of our parameters for the project and her expectations for us. Dr. Morgan explained that currently, for the Go Baby Go program, they are adapting childrens’ motorized vehicles for children with disabilities. This is because it is difficult for children to use wheelchairs and because they need a way of transitioning to using wheelchairs when they get older. The current set up for the Go Baby Go cars only has a push to go or stop button, and we would like to add a joystick. We need a joystick that is intuitive for children to use, that is modular as per the child’s preference, and prepares the child for using a motorized wheelchair. We are planning on meeting with Dr. Morgan on a Wednesday in October in the lab to see the car, and she has agreed to allow us to use one of the motorized vehicles to figure out how they work and where we can add the appropriate adjustments. Dr. Morgan also sent us the current set of models they use for the Go Baby Go program and wants us to determine whether these cars are good for our project, or whether we want to try using a different model.
Questions we have:
Who can we ask for guidance using microcontrollers since we do not have much experience using them?
Should we limit our project for adapting the car for a specific client or should our project be broader in its goals ?
What are some tips you have for a successful senior design group? Specially in the early stages of the project?
Week 6:
This week our group met and discussed future plans for our project. This included deciding who will go next week to the occupational therapy lab to see how cars are modified for clients. Dr. Morgan, our client, told us that there was only space for 1-2 people in the lab while they were modifying the car, so we decided that Ahmed and Muneeb will attend the lab. We also met with some of the occupational therapy students we will be working to better understand the project, its limitations, and needs for the family receiving the Go Baby Go car.
Some questions we have:
1. Is it appropriate to consult other professors we have worked with in the past?
2. Should our prototype be generalizable or for a specific child in need of it?
Week 7 :
For current project status, my group took a trip to the occupational therapy lab where they are modifying cars for the Go Baby Go project. The team we are working with was making a car for a client, so we were able to see which modifications are currently being made and how the modifications were being made. We were able to see how the wiring of the car is modified. We were also able to take one of the cars back home to pick apart and better understand how the car functions. We also learned that some cars have electrical steering and some cars have manual steering, so we have to look into whether we are able to convert mechanically steered cars into electrically steered cars, or whether it makes more sense to just purchase and use electrically steered cars. We are thinking of consulting one of our previous professors, Dr. Potter, about this topic to learn more.
Currently we have no questions, and no updates are made on the web page.
Week 8 :
Our project is going well. We currently have one of the GoBabyGo cars that we are planning on taking apart to see how the car functions. We also met with some of the OT students that we are working with twice this week. The first time was to recap on when we visited the lab last week, and a chance for us to talk about any questions and concerns we had with the project. Most questions we had were about the cars that were being used by the OT students, and we learned the difference between electronic and mechanical steering. Then we met again, but this was just to schedule a meeting next week during the time that the OT students are in the GoBabyGo lab. We decided on meeting on Wednesday. For future plans, our team has met and decided to take apart the car and understand how it works sometime this upcoming week. This is so we can start planning on where we want to add the joystick mounts and what kind of hardware we need to buy.
Currently, our team does not have any questions.
Week 9 :
For this week, we our design team met with the occupational therapists in their GoBabyGo lab. We had formal introductions since we weren’t able to before. Last time we went to the GoBabyGo lab, we watched the OT students prepare a car for a child. This week we reflected on how the car fitting worked, and we were able to ask why certain design choices were made, what some limitations were, what and why they used certain products, and things to consider as we make our own modifications. This was really useful, and we did some brainstorming about what our modified car should like and how it should function. We also requested a guide or instruction manual on what mods they currently do on the car, but we haven’t received it yet. We were also able to see a motorized wheelchair and see how it works so we can draw inspiration for how our motorized car should work. Overall, this meeting helped us better understand our project, gave us a good background to do more research, and also made us a little nervous because we had ideas on how to approach this project, but they no longer seem feasible.
Questions:
-does our final product stay with you, or are we able to keep it or leave it for a child that we design it for?
-how much are we allowed to change our initial project scope and ideas?
Week 10 :
This week, our senior design team received videos and instruction manuals on how to do the wiring for current children’s cars. We looked at the manuals, and we also dissected the car that was given to us. We opened up the plastic cover and looked at the battery, the wiring to the motor, and got a better idea of how the car works and how the modifications affect the cars performance. We have pretty much decided that if we are to continue on this project, we must use electric-steering cars because motorizing the mechanical steering ones seems out of the scope of this project – this is for several reasons, but mostly because the modifications are too complicated for an average consumer and many, possibly expensive, parts would need to be required. We also consulted someone somewhat knowledgeable about cars, motors and steering to talk about possible ideas to consider as we plan for our car. After consultation, it was made clear that using an electric steering car is probably preferred, but we will consult others opinions on the car as well.
Meeting notes were updated to the website.
No current questions.
Week 12:
In this progress report, we consulted with the OT students and found a joystick that we want to use. We also met with Dr. Potter to discuss tips and ideas on how to approach our project. He gave us some good starting points and also gave us a joystick we could use in the mean time. We also borrowed a microcontroller from Professor Widder to use over Thanksgiving break so we can try some of the code we might need for using the joystick. We also discussed with Dr. Potter on how we can add a motor to the front wheels of mechanical steering cars, and what tools we might need to order for that. The lab notebook was also updated. As for the upcoming report, we decided on who will give the report and we organized the work for the next couple of weeks.
Week 13 :
We didn’t get a lot done for break, but we met and split up the work for the report and started working on the joystick coding with the microcontroller. No questions at this time.
Week 20 :
This week we started working on the arduino code for the joystick. We also met with our client and are supposed to receive the Car we are working on in the next few days with the plan to assemble the first prototype by spring break.
Week 21 :
This week we received the car and unboxed it to get a better feel for implementation of our joystick mounting system. We continued working on the Arduino code for the joystick, and have made a good bit of progress on it. As we get closer to testing the code and working out the wiring, we anticipate that we will have questions about it.
Week 22:
This week we met with our Client Doctor Morgan, Dr.Klaessner and the OT students to update them on our progress and finalize ideas since the OT students recently finished a project similar to ours. We also worked on the validation and verification report.
Week 23:
This week we presented our validation and verification presentation. We also discussed plans for work over spring break and after spring break.
Week 25 :
This week we worked on car wiring, we figured out what signals come out of the gas pedal, steering, high speed, low speed switch and we wrote a sketch for possible arduino code to use.
Week 26 :
This week we figured out how to get the voltage signals we want from the arduino using an operational amplifier. Our next step is to cut the wires in the car and connect them to the arduino and see if the signals cause the car to move in the way we want. if that does not work we might have to find a way to dig into the preexisting control unit in the car and change the signals from there so hopefully this approach works.
questions:
Is there any recommendations you have for us in terms of cutting the wires and connecting them to the arduino ?
Week 27 :
We finally got the joystick to control the car forward and backwards movement through a relay and the arduino. We ran into problems with the left and right turn since its two wires that are connected in series and one of them becomes live when the car turns one way and vice versa. Both wires feed into the controller and subsequently the battery. They carry 12V of potential when they are on and 0 when they are off.
We want to measure the current in those wires but we cant seem to find a way. We have tried dmm plugged into two ends of the battery, making a circuit with a ressistor to step down the current, and measuring the current with ammeter in series with one of the wires.
However none of these worked and we are not sure how we can measure the current through the wire to figure out how much power we need to provide to be able to control left and right turn. We also dont wanna fry the controller so that makes it more difficult.
Week 28:
We got the car to work with the joystick, relay and Arduino. We started making the wiring permanent and finishing the documentation of the project.