Meeting 13 💁‍♀️

25/06/2019 

Agenda:  

• Test the audio hat module and microphones  
• 3D design the insulation for the motor controller and platform to extend platform on the tank chassis 

• Add the platform to the tank chassis  
• Test live-streaming of video from pin-hole camera using IP address and VLC video player  

 

Tasks Accomplished:  

• Tested the audio hat module and microphones but realized that there may be some problems with it 

• Discussed and came up with potential solutions as the external microphones were not working with rpi and the audio hat module 
• Designed the parts we need 
• Tested live-streaming of the video using VLC video player from remote devices (laptop and phone)  
• Printed rotatable turntable, platform and insulation 

 

We started work on Tuesday and welcomed Reuben back from his reservice! 👨🏻‍✈️

 

The audio hat and binaural microphones arrived beforehand (with free speakers on the side) and we tried testing these parts out using the rpi and our laptops respectively. The binaural microphones work well by recording stereo sounds and when you listen to the output sounds using earpieces (or headphones), you can discern the difference in sound in the left and right earpiece. However, one huge problem we faced was the audio hat module did not allow audio input via the audio jack and the external microphone. Referring to the audio hat above, when we connect the external binaural microphones into the audio jack, the rpi does not record sounds from the microphone but record sounds from the inbuilt microphone chips on the audio hat instead. There are two chips on the audio hat module (left and right such that is also stereo recording but because the chips are so near to each other, it did not match what we wanted to achieve using the external microphones and 3D-printed ears).  

 

 

Some of us then started 3D-designing the insulation for the motor controller (so that the motor controller will not touch the metal tank and result in a short circuit) and a platform to extend the first level of the tank (we built the second chassis from amazon and decided to incorporate both chassis together such that we have two levels of platform as shown in the picture below). We then screwed the platform to our tank. Below is a picture of how we combined both chassis. Pictures of the tank with extended platform on the first level of the tank will be shown in the future posts soon! 🎇

 

 

We proceeded with testing the live-streaming of video from the pin-hole camera using an IP address and VLC video player which allow other remote devices such as your laptops and phones to stream and play the video live-recorded by the tank. One problem faced is however the lag in the streaming time (which was around 9 seconds long if we were to connect using NTU Secure; this lag is smaller when the device used to stream the video is directly connected via WIFI using the transceivers as seen in meeting 12). When we tried to stream the video from the pinhole camera and audio from the microphone chips on the audio hat module together, the live-streaming did not work anymore (it took very long for the live-streaming page to load and it did not load even after a while). It may be due to too much data transmitted or insufficient WIFI signals to transmit the larger amount of data.  

 

 

That’s all for now… Till tomorrow! 🎆