Week 1/19 - 1/23

It was a shorter week because it started out with MLK day and then we had a professional development day where students don't have school. Even with the short week, I still got a lot done. I started by continuing to try to get the radio receivers to work. I did some troubleshooting involving switching out wires and soldering a new receiver, but something still wasn't working. I then thought that it wasn't necessarily the receiver or wiring that was wrong. I switched the receivers between breadboards and noticed it was specifically that breadboard that wasn't working. The connection between the power/ground strips and the main section wasn't connected correctly, so the receiver was never getting any power. I switched out the breadboards, and the test code worked perfectly which meant I could try out the code for the servo motors.

Mr. L suggested that I use the batteries we had taken out of the confiscated vapes for the R2D2, since we had a lot and I did need a battery. The R2 needs 5 volts to run, as that is what the servo motors run on, but two batteries together is around 6.5 - 7 volts. This is a pretty easy fix as I can just use a 5-volt regulator (shown below) to drop the voltage down. Next week, I will be able to start designing the PCBs, which will hopefully be done by the end of the week.