New problems just kept arising. Since we require 5 peristaltic pumps for our project, we had to use an Arduino shield which allowed for more motors (i.e. the Ramps 1.4). However, the digital pins that we required for connecting the UI were not reflected in the Ramps 1.4 board since it was designed for 3D printing (and not for UI). It was not possible to change the pins since the pin definitions were fixed – we could not define the pins for both the code and the libraries used – hence we were stuck. Sourcing for other Arduino shields was unsuccessful since most shields could support up to four motors, insufficient for the 5 we needed. It seemed like all hope was lost. 

Dr Tony then recommended the Arduino Cloud, where the UI was displayed on a computer screen instead of a TFT screen. Our group was not very inclined towards this since we wanted our entire product to look more compact – having a laptop serve as the UI was not appealing. However, desperate times called for desperate measures and we looked into the Arduino Cloud. It was another steep learning curve since none of us have ever worked with the Arduino Cloud, and most of us had pretty much zero experience with the Internet of Things (IoT). In the end, we realised that since the Arduino Cloud had many built-in features, the UI was extremely limited and insufficient for our use. We discarded the IoT idea and stuck to our plan of using the TFT screen.