By: Jerry Lui ( Manufacturing Engineer) The general layout of the PCB was determined by the how sensitive the signal was, the specific wiring of IC’s to surface mounted components, and mounted surface area. Power input was placed away from sensitive signals and had a trace width of 32mm @ 1oz/ft^2 copper thickness (determined by […]
By: Kevin Moran (Electronics and Control Engineer) In this post I will be discussing my initial selection for the IR receiver and how I began testing its analog output. Components: Transistor: SFH 310 (Opto Semiconductor) Resistor: 2M ohm IR light The phototransistor is a two legged transistor, with its third […]
By: Kevin Moran (Electronics and Control Engineer) Since the analog output of the receiver is very noisy, my division manager suggested I use a Schmitt trigger which has 2 jobs: It reduces noise from the circuit through hysteresis, the time-based dependence of a system’s output on present and past inputs. It inverts the signal […]
By: Ayman Aljohani (Project Manager) For our Goliath project we will be using a custom made PCB that contains a microcontroller (known as the 3Dot Board) that will perform various tasks (ex. movement, laser shot, detector). The physical PCB will be provided for us; however, it is required to solder all the components onto the […]
By: Kevin Moran (Electronics and Control Engineer) In this post we will explore the progression in the components explored throughout this project to make the Laser Tag game possible. My first idea was to use a laser diode as the emitter and a Photo-resistor as the receiver. Pros: 15 meter range […]
By: Tae Min Lee (Systems) After finishing the assembly of the 3Dot Board with our mentor Nick and Lawrence at AOSA we had to troubleshoot if we had any bad connections. These are some of the procedures Nick and the group came up with to test the 3Dot Boards by following the procedures shown […]
By: Tae Min Lee (Systems) Before we upload any programs onto the PCB we have to upload a firmware. The ATMEL Mega32u4 we soldered on the 3Dot cannot function because the chip has not been programmed. In order to make the PCB programmable we will require to upload a firmware (programmable program) using ISP (In-System […]
By: Tae Min Lee (Mission, Systems, and Testing Engineer) To create a custom command for your project on the Arxterra application we need to click on the gear icon and click on the “Custom Command and Telemetry Configuration” (shown below). Now click on the “+” icon and a pop up menu will appear, now choose […]
By: Rickeisha Brown (Manufacturing Engineer) As a level one requirement, the customer requests to refrain from exceeding a total of 6 hours 3D printing time and not to exceed two hours per printed component. The customer has a project total budget of which ultimately limits the amount of spending power per division. Printing Cost estimates […]
By: Ayman Aljohani (Project Manager) The major role of PM is to successfully manage the team to meet customer requirements thus have a functioning product at the final demo. That couldn’t be done without keeping track of project’s critical path to know what is done as per schedule and what is delayed. Knowing that would […]