Progress Report, Week 12: November 29th

This week we have made progress in several areas of our design project.

We have delegated sections of the final paper to individuals in the group as evenly as possible and noted which sections could and should be done as soon as possible.

We met with our faculty advisor to keep him apprised and to receive feedback about our design as well as where we should be overall with the project.

We have also received our fiber optic parts as well as our microprocessor.

We began experimentation with our Arduino microprocessor, acquiring force data from a group member’s arm and conducting preliminary analysis in Excel. While we recorded the pulses from the subject’s brachial artery, we still need to  convert the data from an arbitrary scale to a force scale. Also, the force sensor ceased working after one run and we have begun trouble shooting (and ordering four replacement sensors at $6.95/sensor).

For next week we should be able to finish trouble shooting and collect more data and analyze the data using the proper units in Excel. We also plan to finish the majority of the final paper next week.

The report will present the particle indicator as the final design. However, I must note that our group collectively feels that in order to choose the best design we need to conduct further experimentation, specifically now that we have received the critical parts for our runner up alternative design (fiber optics). As this has occurred so late in the semester, we are prepared for the possibility of needing to modify the particle indicator design accordingly in the future.