User:Amotaher9224/ENES 100/Project 3: Pet Food controller

Week 7 Narrative
During week 7, the teams in ENES-100 switched projects and tried to make improvements come with a redesign. We have turned over all of designe and sketches for the LED turn signal project to Michael Tomaseli, Heidi Schultz, and Richard Rickert. After handing over our projects, we took their project, the Pet Food controller. Usually after we taken over a project, we like to talk and introduce the project and set our goals. The pet food controller, a very original project set a bunch of challenges for the team to overcome. We have been introduced to new concept which we need to familiarize with. So what is a Pet Food Controller?

The Pet food controller is a user-friendly device that controls the food diet of a household pet. The overall idea is that this device will have a pre-set timing for food, which is set by the owner. When owner is away, he or she still control the proportion of food given to the pet. This is will done by designing a food storage unit which will mostly dry food. The storage will drop 1/4 cup of dry food and drop it to the next component in the design, the dispenser. The drop of the storage unit to the dispenser will done through a servo motor. When the food is in the dispenser, its ready to go. When the food is in the dispenser, now it is waiting for a pet to approach it. When a pet approaches this device, a RFID tag which is set on each specific pet will be read by the RFID reader. The RFID tag set new challenges for the team, first that we do not have any prior experience with this part and also that we must the presence and the absence of each different RFID tag, because part of the requirement of the project is that a specific pet could be fed without any interruption of another pet in that household.

Week 8
After we defined our goals and introduced the project to the rest the team, we set specific tasks to each team member to research and execute through out the week. We also consulted with one of the member from the different group who was working on this project to kind of briefly explain where they left out, and where we need to be. We consulted with Michael Tomaseli, and he gave us the code they were working on for the servo motor and the sliding door motor. We have also taken a previous CAD file design for the dispenser unit. Kevin took the initiative to refine the design and draw it to our box's specific measurement and worked on the MakerBot to print it. After the 3D dispenser printed, we had to add a bigger wood "flower like" shape to the side of the dispenser, so it could be attached to the servo motor. There will be a screw attached to the wooden flowerlike shape, which will be used to attach the servo motor to the dispenser. We will code the servo motor to spin a specific degree, and this will also spin the dispenser since both of them are attached together.

Next, we need to fix the housing for the dispenser. The wooden housing given to us was a bit torn down, and it needed to fixed. We decided that we should a brand new box using our own specific measurement. So we start with with four blocks of wood, and Kevin used the power-saw to cut the wood to the specific measurement. In one of the wooden side of the box we needed a small rectangle hole placed in the dead center so the the motor head of the servo motor could be fit through the rectangle it and connect to the screw on the flowerlike apparatus on the dispenser.

Since there are multiple factors affecting the success of the device, we need to point out possible glitches. Here are some of the ones I came up with.
 * How long till the Cat#1 is gone the door will open/close, so the other pet do not eat Cat#1's food
 * Timing for each session of food drop, how long does the Cat#1 have to finish its food?
 * What happens if Cat#1 does not finish its food? Does the door close with the existing food or does it leave open ( this lets the possibility of Cat#2 eating Cat#1's food)
 * If the Cat#1 does not finish its food, and lets the door closes, when it return after specific timing, does the dispenser drop the rest of 1/4 cup of food?
 * Does Cat#2 have to wait for Cat#1 to finish its food to eat, because theres only one bowl for both of the cat?
 * How the whole device react if cat#2 approaches while Cat#1 is in the process of eating?

Week 9
This week was the final week the group worked on this project. Compared to the last project, the LED turn signal, we were able to get a lot things done within 3 weeks. Carlos brought a plastic jar from his house that fit our measurement for the food storage. We tried to focus on putting together the components this week, and the everything else such the RFID tag and servo is just a matter of coding. So by now, we have storage unit, a dispenser apparatus, and sliding door with the bowl integrated into it.

CONCEIVE- This part done by the initial group, Heidi came up with the idea because she saw a need for the device

DESIGN- This project was 50% done with the initial group. However we took over after swapping projects and went off of their idea but integrated our design.

IMPLEMENT- In this phase, we put together everything that basically in notes or idea to a physical object that we can manipulate and test the design.

OPERATE- After we implemented our design, although the servo and RDIF was not active yet, we needed to test the design.