Weekly Update
First Week:
We ordered all external parts except for the camera. After some research and discussion with TAs, we think that the camera module might be a real difficulty, so we decided to make it an optional task. Substituting the camera module, we decided to include motors as an additional external device, and use it to make some kind of trap mechanism to impound vehicles violating traffic laws. Some further discussion with the instructors are needed to finalize our idea.
Second Week:
After having some discussions with TAs, we decided to make the camera module optional because the discovery board has very little RAM to store and transfer the data. So, we are brainstorming the design for the trap system using motors.
We constructed the traffic light LED setup and initialized the basic operation using the configuration: 5 seconds green light --> 1 second amber --> 5 seconds red light
We used cardboard to simulate a one-lane traffic system.
We tested the ultrasonic sensor using our model cars.
Third Week:
We added the trap system to our one-lane traffic system.
We soldered the encoders to motors and tested the motor performance. Our next step is to fix the string on a wheel and attach them to the shaft to control the trap system.
We tested the buzzer.
We decided to use the LED matrix to display the speeding information using SPI protocol, so we ordered the parts.
Fourth Week:
We set up the traffic light system (basically fixed the traffic light and the ultrasonic distance sensor onto the board) as shown in the figure.
We integrated the buzzer, the traffic light LEDs, and the ultrasonic distance sensor. We tested on a simple system where the buzzer was triggered when the speed calculated exceeds 10 cm/s. We calculate the speed using the time difference recorded between 40 cm and 30 cm.
We soldered the LED matrix.
We came up with a way to connect the motor to the string attached to our trap system. We will implement it during the weekend.
