CATS: Clemson (Machinery) Access Tracking System

Week 11 + ISAM

Week 11 was a very busy week for the Creative Inquiry team. After all of the 10 weeks of prior work it had finally paid off. The trip began with an exciting car ride in the Blue Gem (2003 Honda Odyssey with a faulty baby blue paint job) which was then followed by a plane flight to Boston.

The first day in Boston was open for the first half of the day and it allowed us to explore the city. It was absolutely amazing to see the sight of the big city (especially coming from Clemson, South Carolina). We had also toured around MIT campus to see the Makerspaces that they offered.

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Pictured above is a photograph of Owen from the team. As a young boy he had always dreamed of visiting the big city as he lay in the fields in the rural county of Anderson, SC. He imagined what it would be like to see the concrete jungle of concrete and glass, and on this day his imagination was a reality.

Moving on to that night the team went to the social and mingled with the other schools that came to ISAM. A lot was learned about the other projects and Makerspaces that are going on at Universities across the world.

The following day was the first day of the conference where everybody had their presentations about selected topics for Makerspaces. All of the presentations were very well done and expressed things that are working now and other things that aren’t quite working with different Makerspaces. A lot was learned and will be incorporated into the Clemson University Makerspace. The team also had their first night of the poster presentation which went phenomenally. Many of the other guests were very interested in the prospects of our project and were happy to hear about the Clemson Makerspace.

For the second day (Tuesday) of the conference there were more presentations about some new topics that were just as interesting as the last. During the middle of the day we took the opportunity during lunch time to tour Formlabs. It was a super cool visit to see a company we have been following for some time now. They showed us some of the newer things they have been working on as well as the awesome workspace they have in MA.

After the tour the team had a few more hours before the presentation and Giandre was asked to find some more Makerspaces around campus. He managed to find a few but they were closed. Among all of the spaces that were explored one of them really stood out to Giandre. As he rounded the corner of building E35 he began to experience a weird feeling of stomach discomfort. There was an odd sensation in the air, an almost electric feeling. He knew something wasn’t quite right. He held back all feelings of fear and decided to continue on down the corridor towards the source of the paranormal behavior. When he arrived at the door of E35.112 he was stricken with pure terror as he stared straight into the eyes of a ghost. He managed to photograph the entity before he turned and ran as fast as he could back to the conference room.

He told us the door was locked and that there was no way to get into the room. It wasn’t until he showed us the photographs that we truly understood what he saw that day.

All in all it was a fantastic experience for us to experience ISAM. The team really got a lot of good feedback on the CATS project and potential improvements for the device. We also learned a lot about improvements that can be done for the Clemson Makerspace. We are all very thankful for ISAM as well as Creative Inquiry for helping fund our trip to Boston for this conference.

Hey Fam, For Clemson.

Week 10

Hello!

Week 10 was basically a culmination of many things coming together. We’re finally being able to finalize things for ISAM and even realize our goal. The software team was able to connect to a MySQL server in order to use it for authentication, and the hardware team got our PCB boards printed and delivered. We also finished the poster that we will have on display at ISAM. At this point it’s a process of getting our alpha product put together and ready to display. Goals for this week are finishing plans for ISAM, prettying up our design, and getting our code to run indefinitely, intuitively visually, and ideally bug free. We were able to get our code to run indefinitely and our code hasn’t had any issues thus far, so we’re excited for a successful showing at ISAM!

Week 9

Hello my friends. Another week another challenge!

This week the software team had to tackle a few challenges. These challenges consisted of connecting to a server, converting the code into a script that runs on boot, and looking into RAM issues from the Raspberry Pi running indefinitely. The software team was only able to tackle the challenge of connecting to a server only by connecting the Pi through Ethernet and was also able to use it for authentication. In other words, the User’s card is scanned, and is then asked for a PIN. If the user exists and the PIN is good, then the user is able to turn on power, otherwise, re-enter PIN.

Going deeper into the software:

When the python code for the Pi is compiled, the user has 3 seconds to place their card on the card scanner before the program terminates. Software team is working on having the card reader input stay alive until the user decides to take their card off of the card scanner and back on, at their leisure. Challenges keep being presented whenever the software team changes some of the code. For example: when code is compiled and user enters the database successfully, then power is turned on, but the power only turns on for 2 seconds until it shuts off and exits the program. This is one of the problems the team is working on fixing.

The Hardware Team talks about Bill of Materials

The hardware team also had a few challenges to tackle. These challenges consisted of drawing a housing design for the PCB, writing a first draft of poster for the upcoming ISAM event, and creating a Pi case. The team also talked about bill of materials. They discussed the pricing values of RFID Reader, Rasberry Pi 3, Power tail 2, power cord, SD Card, Tall Pi Header, RGB LEDs, and PCB was added to the list, but no pricing details because the team does not have final pricing of it.

Both the hardware and the software team are working together to get the software and the product up and running for ISAM. The teams are trying to get the bugs out and most of the minor and some of the major problems and challenges that the teams have encountered fixed before ISAM.

Hardware and Software teams working on code and looking at Bill of Materials before ISAM comes around

So far the teams doing a great job working together to get it all done!

That will be all for this week my friends. Hope to see you all back for next week’s blog.

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.

Week 6

It’s been another great week for the CATS team! This week we are changing things up with a photo blog.

Electrical Diagram The hardware team developed the Alpha Electronic Schematic using fritzing.

Visual Wiring Diagram

A visual perspective of the schematic.

MATRIX CODE

The software team found open-source python coding to determine keypad presses. Source: Chris Crumpacker’s blog

20161004_165026 The hardware team’s parts arrived.

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And were quickly assembled.

That’s it for this week!

Week 5

It’s the fifth week of CATS and there is finally some action to get excited about. The Bill of Materials was finally completed this week, and after lots of planning and lots of debating the pros and cons between different materials, the total amount summed up to $241.51.

Although this price is over our original aim, the carefully chosen material is worth the extra pennies. For example, the RFID Card Reader we chose specifically reads TigerOne cards (Clemson University’s ID cards) so users won’t have to lug around a card shaped key in their wallet,”as if one walks around with unassigned slots in one’s wallet.”

We also chose to use a Raspberry Pi, basically a computer that fits in your pocket, for our mother board because it has WiFi that works well with eduroam around campus and because it has USB ports that make it easy to use. It also has Bluetooth capabilities and a plethora of accessories that are designed to be compatible with the Raspberry Pi.

Along with the Bill of Materials, multiple potential algorithms for the software operations were presented. They ranged from a simple pass or fail technique to a complex system of pass-codes and card scanning. The actual algorithm has not been chosen yet, but it was agreed that each one was satisfactory.

The Housing team has yet to give any feed back, and we anxiously await their plan. It’s sure to be spectacular.

Week 4

We’ve been working on CATS for 4 weeks now. We’ve made a lot of progress, and we’re working very hard to ensure that we properly manage and design our prototypes. Our Product Manager, Brad Hord, has greatly assisted us in working through the best practices laid out in “Product Design and Development” by Ulrich and Eppinger.

At our first meeting we worked through defining our problem, and performing background research. We recognized that the problem we are trying to solve can be broken up into two parts:

Need for a system to control the use of machines
Need for a simple common identity among our users

Over the next few meetings we brainstormed possible needs, anonymously ranked all of our needs, and then brainstormed concepts based on the needs, and anonymously ranked the concepts.

This week we discussed the rankings of our concepts, and analyzed what aspects of each concept resulted in their rankings. We then generated requirements for our prototype based upon the results of our needs, and concepts rankings.

The members of the team then self-divided into a hardware, software, and housing team. The teams were then tasked with generating a prototype BOM, algorithm block diagram, and an enclosure mock-up.

Next week we will discuss the different prototype proposals, and we will finalize the design for the CATS Alpha model.

Hello World!

Welcome to the CATS project blog! This is our first post.

CATS stands for the Clemson (Machinery) Access Tracking System. We’re a Creative Inquiry team working to develop an open-source access tracking and control system for Makerspaces, Student Shops, and Industrial Applications.

More specifically, we are a passionate group of makers working to lower the barrier of entry for undergraduates to the Clemson Makerspace, while promoting and ensuring a culture of safety.

We are going to post weekly project reports on this blog, and we’re also going to share all of our code and hardware designs on our github.