Our progress | supersix212

1.1Project Components

The three major components of the our project is the eye-tracking glasses, the checkerboard and the XY-plane universal gripper. First, we have the eye-tracking glasses which is fairly simple to assemble. We purchased a Microsoft HD-6000 webcam that will needs to be customized for our project. We have to open up the camera and remove the IR filters in the camera assembly and replace it with negative film. We are using IR LEDs to illuminate the eye based off of that we have seen in previous projects, such as Pupil, because the IR light isn’t visible and won’t bother the user. Some soldering is required to reattach the camera to the board and attach the two IR LEDs to each side. The camera and IR LEDs are then mounted onto a glasses frame and the wiring will run along the side of the frame and down to the Raspberry Pi 2 board.

Our system will be powered by a Raspberry Pi 2 board and Arduino Uno using an I2C. The structure of this project has the XY-plane as an overhead design, similar to that of a claw machine, above the checkerboard. The checkerboard will have thirty three LED lights under the squares of the board that are used during the game and at the center of the board; they will all be connected to an Arduino UNO board. The Arduino will have an LED matrix that will use values of 0s and 1s to light each LED when the system detects the user’s eye movement. The Arduino board will communicate with the Raspberry Pi board through an I2C. The Raspberry Pi 2 board will process the eye tracking and XY plane movements and communicate with the Arduino for the commands done on the checkerboard. The Raspberry Pi 2 board will have have two motor shields attached to power the three stepper motors.

The XY plane will be made out of aluminum rods and will be approximately 10 inches above the checkerboard to allow the universal gripper to descend from the platform. The platform will slide on the XY plane up to sixteen inches in each direction, which is the same dimension of the checkerboard. There will be one stepper motor for the X direction, one for the Y direction, and one to bend the arm of the universal gripper up and down when it is moving to pick up or drop a piece. This allows for a simplified design because everything that needs a motor will be using the same type of motor and would eliminate the need to regulate voltage because of a different motor. The platform will be mounted onto a onto a block that will slide on two aluminum rods in the X direction and two aluminum rods for the Y direction. They will run on a pulley system powered by two stepper motors, one for each direction. When a checkers piece and location is chosen, the stepper motors receive the signal of how much torque to apply to move the platform to the exact position where the piece is and where it needs to go.

The universal gripper’s motor will then receive the signal to lower the arm to grab the piece. The vacuum pump, which is hooked up to the Raspberry Pi 2, will receive the signal to turn on the pump; it will remain on until the piece is moved to the chosen position then shut off. The gripper will be made out of airline tubing, a funnel, and a balloon. The tubing is connected to the inlet valve of the pump and the other end is connected to the funnel. The funnel will have a balloon with coffee grinds inside which will be filtered at the tip of the funnel to avoid it being sucked into the vacuum. The coffee creates a tight hold on the object when the air is eliminated from the balloon.

The glasses will detect where the user is looking at and the LED lights on the board will confirm where the user is looking by lighting up. Our software will then process the user’s gaze and the universal gripper would move to that piece and move it based on the previously confirmed square on the board. After the user’s move is completed, the system will use our checker’s algorithm and array of piece locations to determine it’s own move.