Scott Hunter // Engineering Journal

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[ Week 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Date of Work (2007) Time Spent Description
Week 1
  • January 8
3 hours
Selected and organized the group. Determined Name and project to undertake.

Name would be Insomnia Design, Project was the "Prism" an LED display light show.

Began research on which parts would be used
  • January 9
1 hour
Read up on how to create an LED display board.
  • January 10
2 hour
Decided on to use the Atmega8, MAX7313 LED drivers to be used.
  • January 12
1.5 hours
Meeting with Paul Godin. Decided against tricolor LEDs, better understanding of complexity.
Week 2
  • January 15
2 hours
Created Initial Consolation form and discused it over with Dylan Saunders who gave final approval to go ahead with project.
  • January 16
1 hour
Decided against USB and switched to parallel and serial ports.
  • January 17
3 hours
Decided against Atmega8 and to use the Atmega16 due to more I/O's on the Atmega16.

Saw that Atmega16 is similar in programing language to the Atmega8 with just more I/O's to program.
  • January 18

1 hour

Downloaded winAVR and read about how to program Atmega8 through winAVR.
Week 3
  • January 22
2 hours
Created draft for Project Proposal.Downloaded ATMEL AVR tools. Read a book on how to program Atmega16.
  • January 23
1 hour
Read up on how to wire Atmega16, MAX7313 and LED's together.
  • January 24
3 hours
Continued to read book on how to program Atmega16.

Continued to try to figure out how to wire up the circuit and how to use the MAX7313 with the ATmega16.
  • January 26
1 hour
Read book on how to program Atmega16.
Week 4
  • January 29
2 hours
Read AVRSTK500 User guide and Getting started AVR programming hints.
  • January 30
1 hour
Read on possible naming convention for LED display.
  • January 31
3 hours
Wrote Sample code for atmel mega16 to try to figure out how to work the STK500 and wired it up.

Connected STK500 and tried to make sample code work and debug problems with the STK500 setup.
Week 5
  • February 5
2 hours
Attempted to get the STK500 working with the sample code of program for the ATmega162.
  • February 6
1 hour
Progress Report Presentation, read up on STK500.
  • February 7
3 hours
Got the STK500 to work properly, got the sample program to work and to function.

Started on coding actual project code.
  • February 8
1 hours
Attended Atmel AVR programing seminar held by Craig Maynard.
  • February 9
1 hour
Found that Atmega162 was not I2C compatible and read on what chips were.

Debated on whether to go with I2C or not
Week 6
  • February 12
2 hours
Determined I2C was the proper way to go, determined how to address MAX7313 chips for I2C functionality.

Decided to use Atmega16 for the microcontroller.
  • February 13
1 hour
Read up more on I2C and how it works.
  • February 14
3 hours
Did progress meeting with Dylan Saunders.

Determined I2C address for MAX7313 Chips.

Read up on how to use C-programing with the Atmega16 through WinAVR.
Week 7
  • February 20
1 hours
Continued to study I2C programming.
  • February 21
3 hours
Decided to program ATmega with C program language and read up on how to accomplish this.
Week 8
  • February 26
2 hours
Read up on commands to use for I2C programming.
  • February 27
1 hour
Began to write sample I2C programing.
  • February 28
3 hours
Read up on the headers that WinAVR includes with their program that allows use with C and what it all includes.

Continued writing I2C programming.

I2C is actually Two-Wire Serial Interface for atmel and will thus be called that way from now on.
Week 9
  • March 5
2 hours
Finished writing TWI master program that will be used read, write, transmit and recieve.
  • March 6
1 hour
Began reading on how to send signals over TWI to the drivers
  • March 7
3 hours
Began writing the code to be used that will transmit information to the Driver.

Progress Meeting with Dylan Saunders.
Week 10
  • March 12
3 hours
Redid the TWI interface addresses for the MAX7313 so we could module them in the code, making it easier to code.

Continued coding to get ATmega16 to communcate with the MAX7313.
  • March 13
1 hour
Continued programming.
  • March 14
3 hours
Continued programming, believed to have usart code done.
  • March 15
1 hour
Continued programming.
  • March 16
1 hour
Continued programming.
Week 11
  • March 19
2 hours
Continued programming.
  • March 20
1 hour
Continued programming.
  • March 21
3 hours
Continued programming.
Week 12
  • March 26
2 hours
Progress meeting with Dylan Saunders, continued programming.
  • March 27
1 hour
Continued programming.
  • March 28
3 hours
Fixed errors in program.

Programed Atmega16 chip with C program, Project did not work.
  • March 30
1 hour
Troubleshooted project to try to determine the reason the lights did not turn on.
Week 13
  • April 2
2 hours
Troubleshooted project to try to determine what was wrong, rewrote code to see if code work, it did not. Problem believed to be TWI code not working
  • April 3
1 hour
Researched more on TWI to see if code worked.
  • April 4
3 hours
Read up more on TWI and programing atmega16 chip.

Attempted to reprogram ATmega16 chip.
  • April 5
1 hour
Rewrote a program using help obtained from Craig Limber.
Week 14
  • April 10
1 hour
Read over code, read some more on on TWI.
  • April 11
2 hours
Reprogrammed atmega chip, program didn't work. Cried and died a little.

Stripped wires to hardwire the lights to show.
Week 15
  • April 19
1 hour
Oral Presentation of outcome of project.