Week 4

Weekly Update 4

This week, all members contributed to the rapid prototype. Ishaan created the schematics, Hafsa created mechanical layout diagrams, and Tanpreet created the mock-ups for the app. Additionally, the group convened to try to get the EZ430 working with software-uart. Unfortunately, every member on the team was unable to flash any firmware on the EZ430, likely due to some configuration error or missing drivers. Luckily, Hafsa was able to flash the EZ430 with another laptop, but was running into errors when flashing the software-uart program.

All of the parts that we ordered have arrived. In the upcoming week, we hope to achieve software-uart on the EZ430 and interface it with bluetooth. We also hope to achieve SPI communication with the accelerometer. Lastly, we need to make a power scheme and order a 3.3V regulator for the animal collar prototype in order to meet our goal of beginning testing by November 5th.

Individual contributions are listed below:

Hafsa: Hafsa met with Brody (TA) to debug the EZ430 problems. She also tested flashing with an MSP430 LP and was getting similar errors. Brody suggested it was therefore likely a driver issue. After reinstalling drivers and software, Hafsa was able to flash the EZ430 on a Windows machine. She then worked on getting the software-uart working on the EZ430. Though she was able to resolve most of the errors encountered for this, there were still issues with size of the program vs memory on the device preventing the software-uart program from being uploaded to the device.

Ishaan: Ishaan interfaced the HM-10 BLE module with his personal Arduino kit to verify expected behavior. He was successfully able to send AT commands from the serial port on the Arduino, as well as control an LED via bluetooth and a phone app. He also identified how to put the BLE module in sleep mode.