Week 4 - Software Strategies & Sensor Struggles: iCue’s First Steps
- muhammadsirajbilal
- Mar 5
- 2 min read
This week's session led by Sir Roshan concentrated on software development processes and the various frameworks employed during the project development life cycle. We looked at numerous development paradigms, including waterfall, prototyping, spiral, unified, prescriptive, and agile. We also discussed common development frameworks such as Scrum, XP, Kanban, and DevOps.
A key takeaway from this week's session was the prototype evolutionary process, which emphasizes iterative improvements based on testing and feedback of the project. Given the nature of my project, Agile development appears to be the most appropriate method. Agile enables ongoing refining through incremental updates, making it suitable for iCue, in which the hardware, software, and machine learning models will be built concurrently and improved depending on user feedback. However, some components of the project, such as hardware assembly, require a more systematic approach, making Waterfall development process applicable in those areas.
Project Progress: Assembling & Testing the iCue Device
And the project work officially begins! This week, I focused on assembling and ensuring the iCue device was functioning properly before proceeding to data collection and analysis. I successfully set up the MPU-6050 gyro and acceleration sensor, but encountered an issue where it was only recording five values instead of six and failing to print error-handling messages in the serial monitor. Additionally, I had trouble uploading modified code to the ESP32, which stalled further development.
To move forward, I met up with Dr. Judhi for guidance who suggested to start troubleshooting these issues, checking hardware connections, debugging the serial monitor output, and reviewing possible driver installation problems. These tasks are crucial for ensuring reliable data collection, as the sensor’s accuracy directly impacts iCue’s motion analysis and recommendation system.
Along with setting up the hardware, I also managed to complete my formal project proposal using LaTeX. At the end of this blog, I have attached my proposal, which outlines iCue’s objectives, technical approach, and development plan in greater detail.
Reflection & Next Steps
This week was quite productive as it combined technical problem-solving with theoretical learning about software development processes. Understanding Agile and Waterfall methodologies helped me better plan my project, balancing iterative software developments with a systematic approach to hardware development.
On the project front, while challenges arose in sensor communication and ESP32 programming, they provided valuable insights into debugging hardware-software integration issues. Moving forward, my focus will be on resolving the sensor’s data capture problem, ensuring all six values are recorded correctly, and successfully uploading modified code to the ESP32. Once this is done, I will proceed with testing data transmission and exploring the best ways to store and process the collected motion data.
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