Week 3

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Goals for Week 3

Complete the physical parking lot model design.

Test the initial layout for potential sensor interference problems.

Change and improve the design and code to resolve cross-triggering problems.

Experiment with transitioning from a breadboard to a copper board and soldering to optimize the parking space and improve circuit connections.
Initial Design Challenges

We worked on refining the physical model and resolve the problems encountered during testing. While we managed to gather some materials for building the small parking lot structure, certain components like white tapes were unavailable in local stores and laboratory. This led us to rethink our construction method.

We also explored soldering on the copper board to make the circuit more compact, stable and reduce the spaces consumed by circuit connections . To achieve this, we attempted to transfer the circuit from a breadboard to a copper board and sketched out the circuit connections. 

However, the overall design for the car park model came up with several problems:

1. Sensor Interference 

  • Problem: Cars which entered the parking lot accidentally triggered the exit sensor,  causing incorrect slot count updates.
  • Basic reason: The entry and exit sensors were too close together, leading to unexpected sensor activation.
2. Limited Layout
  • The original design lacked enough space between the entry and exit lanes, leading to overlapping sensor detection areas.
Solutions Implemented

1. Redesigned Layout

  • Increased separation to reduce sensor interference.
2. Simulation Testing
  • Used toy cars and hand gestures to simulate the cars' movement.
  • The new layout reduced sensor cross-triggering by a substantial amount, background objects were no longer triggering the sensors.
3. Construction Adjustments
  • Due to limited material, we changed the construction plan.
  • Tested soldering and transferring the circuit to a copper board for the better stability.
  • After testing, we found that limitation of the wires length and fragility of components leading us to consider give up the new set up or use a smaller breadboard instead.


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