10: Thursday, April 17

We had a very productive day today. Overall, we organized our plan for the rest of the term, being mindful of the amount of time we have left. On the coding front, we finalized our code, which works with our KiCAD file.  We used Cursor AI to code the RC car in c++. We proofread everything to make sure it makes sense and to find any errors.  We still hope to test it on the final printed circuit, but we have yet to print the KiCAD.

On the driving front, we practice car control by using Ryan and Roshan’s car and track as a test subject. This allows us to have a better idea of how much clearance our track will need in order to have two cars on the track at the same time. We plan to work with Ryan and Roshan to use their track because it conserves time and materials. 

We plan to start 3D printing our car chassis, so we worked extensively on designing it (almost completely) in Fusion. Designing the Fusion RC car chassis was difficult in terms of piecing together our car. However, considering the fact that we had an idea of what we wanted our chassis to look like, we followed our vision and worked from there. We have incorporated Ackermann steering by using a servo. Also, for the back of the car, we need to finalize the construction of the motor, differential, and drive shaft. We are in a good spot for our Fusion design, and we are excited to start printing it out next class. 

Lastly, we worked on our KiCad circuit board. We identified what parts we need and what the size of the circuit board will be. We are going to import the circuit board size into our Fusion to ensure the parts will fit neatly inside the car. Also, given that we have changed the size of the battery, we will need to account for that Fusion.