internship week 8

The eighth week of my internship here at NUS.

Last week, we used a code which was based on the basic Euler angles of the object in real space. By calculating the different accelerometer and gyroscope values on their respective x, y and z axis resulting in roll pitch yaw as mentioned last week. However the code was too unstable for my application thus i embarked on a journey to find another of such code which is more stable. Thus i saw a video online regarding a HMD head tracker device which was what i wanted with my device. They used another program named FREEPIE which was a programmable input emulator which was able to read the ahrs data from the 9dof( nine degree of freedom and it would act accordingly to the movement of a mouse on the computer. I then begin researching and found many codes online however i could not get most of it to work as due to many varying reasons such as different Arduino IDE versions to the lack of library resources, I then tried to get the algorithm in the codes as it may be very helpful to our super jittery code which we were using currently. I then recorded it down so that i could provide it as a reference to the undergraduate when he comes into the office on Wednesday.


I worked with him when he came into the office. We were both helpless on how to get the code going as we could not find any useful sources online. Most of it was either too jittery, too unstable or in some binary output values which we would not understandable to us. We both tried to understand the algorithm within but to no avail. We knew we ould not use Euler angles as it would result in a problem of Gimbal Lock, which is the locking of any two angles in the rotation axis and rendering the last available axis useless no matter where it turns. The original code that we use resulted in crashes when we turned too much too a certain degree example too much to the left. I was not too good with the programming portion as i really could not understand some of the codes online. We both decided that we would continue on with our individual research and would meet up again next week to discuss about any new finding in the code.

 
Thus i could not touch much of the software part, i then started developing the hardware portion of my project. My supervisor advised me to put an equal amount of effort and time on both the hardware and software portion as it was both equally important, he also told me to manage my time so that i do not put too much focus on a single portion. I then started designing and decorating my 3d printed casing, My supervisor provided me with a can of spray paint and i started using it. I found ot that once dried the spray paint would give a matte finishing which was not something i wanted, I wanted a more glossy finish to it. I also found out that spray paint would not spread out evenly on uneven surfaces thus i decide to hand paint it myself with acrylic paint. Without the materials, i went down on Friday to the Artfriend at Bras Besah to get the glossy finish and paint. i decided to leave the paining to next week s it would take time for the object to dry.

I believe the software problem would not be too huge of a a problem as many people are already doing it online thus i believe with the right code, i would be able to get mine working as well. The hardware portion was also easy as it was just the painting of the external case. I believe that my product is progressing well. I inten to start on the circuitry of the product next week. That sums up my eighth week here. Half of my internship is over and i look forward to the second half of it. I must complete my work before the end of my internship.