PHOTOVOLTAIC MARTIAN BUGS

Project Log

November 4th, 2003: Lab Day 2

Where: Jobst 248

What got done:

We began this lab period completing our system block diagram assigned in EE 419. This took a few hours to get everything in order and make up some flow charts that will hopfully organize our project. Its not final of course but it serves as a good first look at how everything will work together.

Despite ordering parts last week they had yet to arrive before lab. Without solar cells or motors we could not run the tests we wanted to. So we moved on to other things that needed doing. We had yet to choose a microcontroller to use on the project. We spent most of the day doing research into diffrent 8051 style processors comapring size, performance, power consumption, and features from various manufacturers. We have found a processor that we liked made by Phytec, but it must first be approved by our lab director due to its expense. We are awaiting final aproval.

While we both looked at microcontrollers we also managed to begin planning out how our software will work together. We've started some preliminary software flowcharts for each of the main software modules that we think we will have and have come up with a possible method for generating random numbers. Further discussion will need to be done on exactly what we will do in regards to that.

What needs doing:

The preliminary software flowcharts need to be completed. It will be difficult to gauge what the specifics will be on the software until we get into the code. For now it can be asssumed that our hardware will be in next lab period. Therefore, we will focus on the hardware aspect of the project until our development board arrives.