Week 4: May 30th - June 5th

This week my goals were to finish tidying up the website while also creating this blog. I also wanted to complete some research on developing an app for either a PC or a standalone GUI on a raspberry pi.

Our first idea was to create a stand-alone GUI on a touchscreen connected to a raspberry pi. However, with most computers already having Bluetooth modules built in, I thought we could develop an app that can be installed on a desktop computer. Looking into it I came up with some pros and cons of each that we could go by to decide what seems more reasonable.

Platform	PRO	CON
Desktop App	Engineer would easily be able to install the program on computer and manipulate the mic stand all on one device	Not all computers have Bluetooth built in so this might be a compatibility issue.
Phone App	Portable and easy to use touch screen GUI. The engineer would be able to manipulate the mic stand from different viewing angles or even in the same room.	Must be compatible for iOS and Android. The operation is separate from the workflow of the computer.
Stand-alone GUI	Much like the phone app, the stand-alone device would be able to be somewhat portable and not too far from the workflow.	This would take up more space in the control room that wouldn’t be as portable as the phone app.

Given these Pros and Cons, the phone app seems to be more reasonable and might be the solution to this problem.

After doing this I was able to complete updating several tasks on the website such as setting up the blog for the progress log and updating the front page and bios. I also started working on a 3D render of the concept art to get a better picture of what we are trying to build. I gathered a model for the mecanum wheels, but I took inspiration from this robot “arm”.

This arm would sit on top of the base and have the ability to rotate and move the arm up and down. Using Blender I was able to build a simple base with the mecanum wheels attached with a simple arm structure that is attached to a mic as a demonstration. This rendering is only a prototype sketch and will be improved upon once we come to a conclusion on the construction.