What we are doing

• building the frame completely
• interfacing Stage II & Stage III
• finishing Stage III

What we are going to do

Week 7, Saturday 5/12	Working on building the frame and wiring everything together There was a small bug in the Stage II code. We got it fixed and now Stage II is completely functional.
Week 6, Saturday - Week 7 Friday 5/1-5/11	Worked on and completed final design package Built the Stage I / Stage II circuit. With that, Stage I is officially complete Played with the velocity for Stage II to get it more precise to a musical instrument
Week 6, Friday 4/30	We've got MIDI!!! Went from putting constants on the serial port to putting a MIDI "Note On" and "Note Off" message on the serial port, triggered by the laser blockage. Connected it to a PC sound card, and got notes to transfer correctly. The MIDI program "Anvil" sees the messages we send as correct! Also worked more on Stage III. Began putting in decay box. Does not work very well right now.
Week 6, Thursday 4/30	Figured out what frequency oscillator we need so that we can send MIDI at the correct baud rate. 24 MHz is perfect. We were able to send out the constant 0x96 at the correct baud rate. Also worked on and finished the reviewer comments.
Week 6, Wednesday 4/30	Got a constant 0x96 out the serial port using "Mode 0" (non-variable baud rate). Tried using Mode 1 to vary the baud rate, but got nothing out the port.
Week 6, Tuesday 4/30	Presented reviewer comments.
Week 6, Monday 4/30	Updated web page. Created reviewer comments and slides to present.
Week 6, Sunday 4/29	Did much work with Stage III. Got 12 simultaneous notes by having 2 of the audio channels share resources. We are running six channels on the high edge of the LR clock, and the other six on the low edge.
Week 5, Saturday 4/28	Began working more on Stage II. Got polling to work using timer interrupts. Also build a lot of C code structure. Continued work on Stage III. Got 6 simultaneous tones to work using an organized design that follows our Stage III block diagram.
Week 5, Thursday 4/26	Presented preliminary design to class.
Week 5, Monday - Wednesday 4/23-4/25	Worked on presentation.
Week 4, Thursday 4/19	Started and finished prototype construction of the UMI's frame. Gathered data for analysis section of the PDP. Continue working on and finished PDP.
Week 4, Wednesday 4/18	Our new webpage went live at midnight!!! Did some testing with the logic analyzer to see how much delay there is from input signal to output signal of the microcontroller. Continue working on PDP.
Week 4, Tuesday 4/17	Continue working on the PDP.
Week 4, Monday 4/16	Updated calendar. Don't forget to file your taxes!! Continued attempt on generating a sine wave tone. After many unsuccessful attempts, we decided to focus on getting the PDP done first.
Week 4, Sunday 4/15	Attempted to generate sine wave tones. We have one working but it comes with a lot of excess noise. We will try to figure out what is going on tomorrow. Continued working on PDP.
Week 3, Saturday 4/14	After much hard work, figured out the audio codec and generated square wave tones. Continued working on PDP. Went to Active Electronics to buy phototransistors and comparators. Bought PVC pipes from Lowe's.
Week 3, Friday 4/13	Preliminary design package (PDP) work. Tried to get audio codec to generate tone; no luck.
Week 3, Wednesday 4/11	We decided to integrate stages II and III from the proposal into a single stage, as it will make the design simpler.
Week 3, Tuesday 4/10	Figured out how to program the stand-alone 8051. Integrated a functioning microcontroller into our circuit; currently just acts as a pass-through between port0 and port1.
Week 3, Monday 4/9	Tried to get a stand-alone 8051 microcontroller to work. Had difficulties with programming it.
Week 2, Sunday 4/8	Moved our prototype circuit to a larger bread-board with power supply connector. Learned a lot about the 8051 microcontroller.
Week 2, Saturday 4/7	Continued work on Web site. The cool new design has not been posted yet.
Week 2, Thursday 4/5	Started and completed lab 1. Completed the proposal and worked on the Web site.
Week 2, Sun-Wed 4/1-4/4	Worked on proposal and details.
Week 1, Saturday 3/31	Went to Active Electronics and bought a couple of photo transistors. They did not have any photo diodes in. The photo transistors were for IR signals, but was able to detect red laser light. Successfully built the first single-string prototype with laser and photo transistor with our own circuit design.
Week 1, Friday 3/30	Built a circuit found on the web from http://www.robotroom.com/Comparator.html. Used this to get idea on how to use photo cells to output +5V and 0V. Bought most parts from the EE store. Did not get photo transistors, could not fully test out the circuit.
Week 1, Thursday 3/29	Talked to Professor. Printer on wheels has fundamental power problem. Rubik's cube solver is just too difficult. One of the last 7 reasonable ideas, the virtual harp, turned into a more complicated (and reasonable for ten weeks) idea. We decided on the virtual harp as our final idea. Motto: No strings attached. Tested photocells, and the voltage change is not that great for testing logic. Trying zener diode but the ones in the lab only attenuate at 18V (way too high). Photo diode or photo transistor might be a better idea because responds more quickly and is more sensitive.
Week 1, Wednesday 3/28	More Brainstorming. Brought down to two main ideas: Wireless printer on wheels, Rubik's cube solver.
Week 1, Tuesday 3/27	Brainstorming. Came up with 17 ideas, narrowed it down to 7 reasonable ones.