Hi everybody! Finally, we have arrived to the very last week of work on the project. It was a bit hectic, having to juggle between running the final tests on the prototype, finishing both the video and the poster to be delivered and writing the pitch deck presentation, but here we are. There’s no going back now, which makes us, on the one hand, a bit scared, but also satisfied with what we have achieved so far. So, here’s what we’ve done during this week.
Up until this week, everything that was left to be done on the software department was the whole process of actually transmitting different types of media; so far, we had only been capable of sending and detecting a straight beam from a LED, not a whole modulated message.
So, instead of going straight to the signal generator, generating a square wave and then modulating it, we decided to start with an Arduino device due to its reliability and ease of use, and got some good results. Then, we moved on to our beloved RaspberryPi to achieve even better modulation quality, which is what we got.
But how does all of this work? Well, in the emission half of the prototype’s software, the RaspberryPi receives the information through serial data and sends it in a binary stream to the modulation segment. Then, the other RaspberryPi, now in the reception half, decodes the binary data and sends the translated information to another PC. These pieces of information can be anything from text, to audio, pictures and even videos, which greatly increases the magnitude of our prototype.
At last, the make or break moment of this entire project: can we really transmit data through water?
In order to do these tests, everybody got together in Rodrigo’s basement with the purpose of running the final tests with his turtle’s tank filled with just enough water to allow the light to pass through the length of the tank (between the transmitter and the receiver). And everything went perfectly! The test signal, which is just a straight beam, was perfectly captured by the photodiode over the tank’s length of 60 cm, and worked for quite a wide angle, as seen in the images below. So, we really can transmit data through water!
This post marks the end of all the work assigned to this project, and we are really satisfied with what we have done. Maybe if it was about a month ago, we would not be that optimistic, but practically everything fell into place for us.
Now, with all of our own consciences cleared, we are beginning to ready ourselves for the next step, which will be ElectroDay, a couple of weeks from now. We are looking forward to it, and will do our best to show everybody what we have done. Thank you, and goodbye.