In the Second Half of the Semester
I have had workexperience
with the Mazzanti Robotics team
After finishing my work on the react website for Mazzanti. I did some work experience with their robotics lab, who experimented with racing chairs and car safety.
After I had completed the backend for the Mazzanti Webapp I started working with one of the devs on how to create a small electronic device, which can rely to a webapp how many people are in the car and whether they are wearing seatbelts or not. We decided that the best place to implement the device would be within the footwell as all passengers will store their legs in this area during a drive.
Week 11: Planning and Creating
I made use of a raspberry Pi electronics box, which I had bought about 2 years ago. To create the initial device, I decided to use my Raspberry Pi Zero W to test what sensor components would be the best to use. After a couple of days or researching and playing around with the components, I was told by the team that the use of an LDR light sensor maybe best as the users legs would block light into the sensor which could then give an accurate reading of the seat being occupied.
After I had completed the backend for the Mazzanti Webapp I started working with one of the junior devs on how to create a small electronic device, which can rely to the webapp as to how many people are in the car and whether they are wearing seatbelts or not. We decided that the best place to implement the device would be within the footwell as all passengers will store their legs in this area during a drive so it would be the easiest area to implement a sensor.
Week 12/13: Development
I decided to utilise the inbuilt WIFI board, in which resides within the Raspberry Pi. I then programmed the raspberry pi, via Python, to rely data from the LDR sensor via a MySQL databank, in which myself and the junior dev worked on. The data can now be accessed via firebase and into the webapp.
As seen to the left, the raspberry pi uses its sensors to see changes in light, and with that it will report this change via SQL to the webapp.
I decided to give MySQL a go as I have always been keen to gather some knowledge on it. As well as this the team thought it would be a good idea for me to gather experience in this field before I work on the proper back end for the app in March 2022. My work on this can be seen to the right.
Week 14: The Future and Semester 2
After I had finished development on the Python mini project with the Junior dev, me and the team had a meeting to reflect on my progress throughout the semester, as well as discussing the possibility of we are staying on some of the projects into Semester 2. It was decided that I would continue to work on the mazzanti webapp over the Christmas period and then have it in a ready state for 12th March 2022. I gladly accepted this offer and am very happy to finally feel like a trusted member of the team!