The month of October has marked a lot of changes for this project, including a name overhaul from searchBOT to GRIP. As of now, we have ordered our parts and are waiting for them to arrive. Until then, we have steadily been working away on the final approvals on our proposal, CAD models, and initial programming for the detection system. By next month, we hope to wrap up the CAD models and the bulk of programming on the Computer Vision. Stay tuned for our update next month!
This month has marked a lot of progress for the GRIP team, as we have received all of our components, wrapped up the design of our CAD models, and started to code on the Raspberry Pi. Along the way, we experienced technical issues such as connecting the Raspberry Pi to incompatible FCPS WiFi or locating a temporary Micro-SD card. However, with our collaboration and technical skills, we were able to solve these problems and continue on with the building and programming for GRIP. We are looking forward to the challenges that await us in the design and coding phase of this project. See you next month!
Although it is holiday season, we were still able to make significant progress on both the mechanical and programming aspects. As of now, we have been able to finish GRIP's PVC frame and connect its motors to the ESCs, allowing for GRIP to propel through the water. Meanwhile, as per programming, we were able to stream live video from our onboard camera using the Raspberry Pi. Additionally, we were able to implement the facial detection system code that we coded on our laptops onto GRIP's cameras to detect our faces. With GRIP's camera being able to detect faces, we can adapt this code and its parameters to work with plastic and water bottles, allowing the robot to detect and identify such objects. We hope that next month marks even more progress for GRIP. We will catch you in the new year!
Now that it is 2020, we are ready to reveal the progress that we have made since out last update! We have been hard at work wiring up our four motors to the ESCs and bullet plugs, allowing us to start testing them on land. Meanwhile, in the programming department, we are close to finishing up the detection system. By swapping the XML file reference that allows for the facial detection code to detect faces with one that detects plastic, we will be able to identify plastic using the Raspberry Pi camera. We are currently in the process of gathering positive and negative images to create a large enough dataset for the XML file, but once we are able to decode those images into XML format, the detection system will be able to accurately detect plastic. We look forward to wrapping up the detection system within the next two months and start focusing more heavily on the mechanical aspect, but until then, see you in February!
The month of February has marked significant progress for the GRIP. In the mechanical department, we were able to finish up making the motor-nozzle system and connecting them to the frame of the ROV using custom motor mounts. Additionally, we were able to test the motor-nozzle systems and ensure propel at least in the air. On top of this, we started work on the dry tube, the part of the robot that contains the electronics. We are still working on mounting the tube to the robot and water sealing, but that will take the next month of work. Meanwhile, in the programming department of the project, we are now able to detect plastic from the webcams of our laptops; all we need to do now is download the softwares needed to run the code on the Raspberry Pi, upon which we will have completed the robot's plastic detection system. We look forward to completing the rest of the detection system in the next week or two and are also excited to see what progress we will make in the next month. See you in March!