We first started off by exploring the CircuitLab website, as this website was not very easy to navigate at first. After becoming more familiar with the features on this website, we began to brainstorm the best ways that we could complete this circuit to fulfill all expectations of this project (if there are no symptoms the green light turns on, for one symptom the yellow light turns on, for two symptoms the red light turns on, and for all three symptoms the alarm sounds). To find the best ways to complete our logic gates, we created truth tables and algebraic expressions where the inputs were symptoms and the outputs were colored lights to figure out what gates we would need to use for each light. We ended up finding that for the green light, the best logic gate combination was in using NOT gates and then an AND gate. We came up with this combination because we knew that AND gates only had an output of 1 (true) if all of the inputs were 1 (true). However, we wanted this light to produce 1 (true) when all of the inputs were 0 (false) which is why we put the NOT gates before the AND gate. For the yellow light, we came up with the logic gate of having an XOR and NOT into OR gates all going into an AND gate. This was because we wanted only one truth in the inputs to result in a truth output and this combination allowed us to do that. For the red light, we found that the truth gate that would work the best was in using an XNOR gate and an OR gate going into an AND gate to fulfill the purpose of having two truths in the inputs result in a truth output. We found this gate combination through use of our original truth tables and through looking up the outputs for general gates of XNOR and OR gates. For the alarm we found that the logic gate we would use was in only using an AND gate because AND gates need all 1 (true) inputs to produce a 1 (true) output which was exactly what we wanted. Then for the alarm circuit design we followed the example on the CircuitLab website, modifying it slightly for the timer we were using. After we had finished all the logic gates and set up all of the lights/alarm, we decided the best way to show the number of symptoms in our design was in using switches. We decided to use one switch for a dry cough, one switch for a heightened temperature, and one switch for low oxygen levels. When these switches were closed it would mean that a person was experiencing that symptom. We then added a battery as a voltage source and connected all wires between the switches, logic gates, flip flop, clock, lights, and alarm. This was our original full design and after this step, all we had left to figure out was the right times we would use in running the simulation, as we were having trouble figuring this out the first few times that we ran our circuit. Once we figured this out, we were able to get voltage going through each of the lights and our alarm and clock oscillated in the simulation, so our work was complete. However, our design was still very complicated and messy, so we cleaned it up and added descriptive nodes so that our design would be clearer. This ended up being our finished and final design.
For the research paper, we first did some general research on the design process of circuits. After this research, we decided that our overall research question for this paper would be “What are the design processes behind complex and simple circuits and how are these implemented into Biomedical and Electrical Engineering?” Next, we created an outline of the sections that we would want to include in our research paper and divided the sections up among us to get the paper done efficiently and productively. After this, we all did our part in looking over the research paper to revise, edit it, and ensure it was at a level to be turned in.