October 2016 – CATS: Clemson (Machinery) Access Tracking System

Week 8

It’s been another exciting week with the CATS teams. Cold and flu season is upon us, but that did not keep the teams from meeting to keep a steady pace. This week, the CATS teams acquired a power control module that both the hardware and software teams will utilize.

IMG CATS — The CATS teams video conference with members that could not make it

The hardware team presented diagrams and plans for the PCB and housing in which the system would be contained. The team also kept in mind potential problems that they may encounter. The alpha prototype of the system uses different hardware than what is intended for the final design of the system, so the team ensured that the hardware changes would not affect housing and PCB plans. The hardware team continued to plan and prepare for the trip to ISAM.

The software team made progress this week with a function that will turn a machine on and off. In this early stage of the function, a card swipe will turn on the machine for a short time before it powers off. However, the software team also encountered some problems. The team discovered that the SQL server can only be accessed through Ethernet or VPN. While this is not detrimental to early stages of the system, it presents a sizable obstacle to the late stage design since connectivity to both Ethernet and WiFi is part of the needs. The software team will have to work with data locally until the teams find a solution to the problem.

The alpha prototype turns a "lamp" on for a brief amount of time — The alpha prototype turns a “lamp” on for a brief amount of time

Looking ahead, both teams are focusing on ways to overcome the difficulties that the SQL connection limitations present. The software team will also work to advance the function so that the control of power is more reliant on user ID and keypad entries. Both teams are working hard to ensure that the alpha prototype of the system works and is presentable for ISAM.

Week 7

This week in our meeting, the different teams presented their progress. The hardware team and software teams have started to work fairly independent of each other since we have agreed on our basic design.

From the software team, we have a working code for the keypad matrix that takes in an array of 4 digits as a pin number. There is discussion about whether pin numbers should be 4 digits or the length should be left up to the user. The only problem we ran into getting the keypad matrix up and running was a faulty pin in the header for the keypad. After switching a few pins around, everything is working great! The software team also set up a basic format for the data that will be stored in our MySQL server. Each user ID will have a boolean variable for each of the machines and one variable for the type of user (administrative or otherwise).

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This is a photo of Brice and Giandre working on the code for the keypad matrix!

From the hardware team, there wasn’t much work done on the actual CATS alpha. Instead, the hardware team worked on and submitted an abstract for ISAM (International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces) which got accepted. This week, the RaspberryPi was also set up and the circuit was constructed.

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This is Maurice trying to help Stefan understand how the MySQL server will function.

For next week’s meeting the software team will work on turning a lamp on and off using the CATS system and the hardware team will design a PCB to streamline the production of the CATS system. The hardware team will also work on getting an initial design for the housing.