Contents

The Plan

This week we need to consolidate and test the networking code written during last week's working sessions.  We only have 2 more class sessions beyond this so we need to debug and clean up the code this week.  Sensors and servos will be handed out so we have all the pieces needed to actuate, sense, and communicate.  We can plan the final two weeks which will likely be building our demonstration and then demonstrating it. 

Discussion

The working groups seemed to make great progress, but I don't think either group completed an entire network.  Some things that came out of the groups will be discussed like the module ID being the unique identifier, the code size and using slot 11 to store the large program, and the merging of the two groups coding.  We will also get a report from the team doing the sensor/actuator integration code so we all know where/how to use that. 

We need to define our final demonstration which we have narrowed down to essentially a garden of simple flowers that respond to motion in a networked fashion and demonstrate the capability to communicate across the entire network, regardless of it's shape.  We also want the network to handle nodes being introduced, moved, and removed. 

We have very little time so I expect we will organize another working session outside of the class period this week to finalize the network agreed upon.  We can plan our demonstration and decide when to do this along with defining the final design of the flowers, etc. 

Lab

This week will mostly be planning and discussion but we will hand out and try our sensors and actuators.  The team that did the code for this (Nick and Nick) will be showing others how to connect and manage these and we will hand out the sensors with wires/plugs installed to be tried out as well. 

If we have networking code up and running at this point, we can work as a group to test a few message passes to begin debugging and understanding how well it works. 

Assignment

We are close, but we have to have a working network for next week.  As much time as is needed to complete this needs to be spent so we have a reliable message passing implemented to build upon next week with our sensors and actuators.  Based on what we see this week from the previous working sessions, we will divide and conquer the remaining portions and begin cleaning up and documenting the code for future users.  We may also add in a team working on a simple background behavior for the nodes when no communication is taking place.  This could be occasional movement and directing the "flowers" towards light.  Broken up, we need at least the following pieces:

• Background behavior coding
• Final network implementation (likely shared by three teams so we have nodes)
• Documentation of the code base

Revision History:

• 2009-02-25: Initial Post

Related Links:

Main page for the University of Oregon Winter 2009 407/507 course

Resource Collection for the 407/507 Winter 2009 course