Hi everyone,
In the last month, we worked on the documentation website, which covers the technical aspects of the project and is now available at docs.plasticscanner.com. The goal is to explain how the plastic scanner works, the theory behind it, and its implementation in practice. It also provides an overview of prototype revisions and links to all related hardware designs and software sources. It is a starting point for a documentation that will hopefully grow with time and with your input.
Besides that, we are progressing with the development board (DB 2.0) which enables us to experiment with different software and hardware configurations easier. At the moment, we’re focused on the firmware which enables serial commands such as Read sensor value and Turn on the 1200nm LED, etc. This will allow us to operate the DB 2.0 with simple python scripts and perform automated hardware verification tests and various experiments.
While developing this firmware we discovered some bugs in the PCB design, made some workaround hacks and we will soon be working on a new revision of the board. Exciting!
Apart from all the technical stuff, we dedicated lots of time to our community, meetings, and interviews. We started collaborating with industrial design students at TU Delft who are researching the commercial aspects of the project and we visited the Delft Optics Centre at TNO.
It has been a busy, short, but exciting month!
Cheers from Jure & Jerry!