Circuit Breaker Phase

  • During the Circuit Breaker period, we had no choice but to discuss our project through video calls (which were riddled with technical difficulties…)
  • Our initial idea was utilizing a spectrometer to measure ripeness of frutis and we developed our design and ideas heavily on the spectrometer concept
  • We sourced for spectrometer chips, UV filters and other hard-to-obtain parts for our spectrometer

 

Obtaining our parts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • We started to receive our shipments, ranging from our Arduino (left) to our first UV LED (right)

 

Design

 

  • We used SketchUp to generate our first preliminary design of our box and used Autodesk Fusion360 to design our spectrometric case

 

Discarding the spectrometer

  • We decided to discard our spectrometer as the spectrometric chip was too costly (around $600)
  • We looked at other possible ways to measure ripeness of fruits and decided to settle on our current idea to utilize color recognition and averaging of photo to determine ripeness of bananas
  • Our current method was far more cost-efficient (only requiring camera and LED lights), but possibly less accurate
  • We then proceeded to redesign the box based on this idea

 

Constructing the box

 

  • Initially, we did not account for the 3mm thickness of the acrylic in our design. After we settled the issue and ordered the acrylic sheets, we got down to work and constructed the main compartment of our box
  • We then spray painted the interior of the main compartment white (a good contrast against the banana’s yellow/green/brown)

 

Constructing the side compartments

  • We then started construction of our side compartments (spray and vent mechanisms), which involved the use of some 3D printing and design
  • For our spray mechanism, we came up with an initial prototype involving maker beams and wires, along with a 3D printed bracket for our servo motor
  • For our linear rail, we designed and 3D printed a servo motor bracket along with a gear and linear rail.

 

Codes and testing

  • Meanwhile, we were also busy refining the codes for the servo motors, LED lights and user interface
  • For our spray, we realized the motor was too weak and proceeded to refine our design with a stronger servo motor
  • For the linear rail, our design worked flawlessly and we only had to iron out the servo motor torque control
  • For our user interface, we were testing out the full codes that turned on the LED lights, took a picture, eliminated the white background and took the RGB average of the remaining pixels to give an average color. A full demonstration is shown in this video: IMG_3940

 

Setting up the electrical circuit