This week in class we continued to work on our projects. As I am focusing on the electronics of the vertical garden, I continued to work on the Arduino and visited the Fab Lab on Monday in search for an Arduino WIFI shield and a little help on how to use it. Unfortunately, the Fab Lab did not have any WIFI shields for me to use on our project. I did speak with one of their experts on small electronics and he did suggest that I use a specific Arduino that can connect to the internet without the need of a shield. After asking him a couple questions about the Arduino I found out that it has only 1 Analog data input which would not work for our project as I would need at least 3 or 4. He then suggested that I could potentially connect that Arduino to the Arduino Uno that I am using and connect to the internet that way but in the end we agreed that it would probably be too complicated in the short time I had. I then decided to connect the sensor to a series of status lights as a temporary solution and I will attempt to set up a 3 digit display that will show the status of the vertical garden. I am also working on an issue with the LED lights flickering a little when the soil moisture sensors are triggered. I am confident I can figure out these issues with the Arduino in time for our final presentation.
In class we also evaluated 2 other group’s projects. The first group’s project was the adaptable steering wheel attachment. Overall I really liked the progress they had made and attachment really felt like it would attach to a steering wheel well. I did give them some advice on testing the strength of the clamp. The second group we evaluated is working on a people counter. I ended up spending a good amount of time helping them out with their Arduino and showed them how to connect their motion sensors to the Arduino in order to make sure that they work. That group is also working on getting a 3 digit display to work so we will be sharing any successes that we might have.