This last week involved a change of scenery for me. I was moved to help with tests on some of the actual battery cells. Here's what the station looks like:
The full cell is huge. The one I was testing had 60 smaller batteries in it, but this one gives a good idea of what it looks like on the inside:
On my first day there, we went through some simple, but highly necessary, tests on the batteries. Unfortunately, not everything was completely written and automated yet, so we went through a lot manually. This included things like making sure that the battery was in the correct state depending on the last state it was in or depending on the parameters that were given to it. I learned the importance of succinctly written requirements for software and hardware, as though the person I was working with wrote them himself and knew them well, they were inaccessible for some reason online.
The next day, I worked in the same area. We were testing to make sure that the cells would charge correctly. It was a bit repetitive, as everything was done by hand. The steps were simple: add a module to the charging cycle, wait a short time for the current to stabilize, take a screenshot or the current, and repeat. We added 18 modules and had to test that it charged correctly between 12 and 38 Amps. So, it was a lot of testing.
That's all for this week! For now, I have to calm myself down as we enter the heart of our track season. I think we have a meet every weekend until I have to present my project... Yikes.
Hopefully I'll see you next week!
Chris Varanese
P.S.: I added some fish to my blog. Be nice to them please.
cute fish
ReplyDeletemine died
anywho, the workspace look really cool, but all that manual work seems extremely tedious.
You killed the fish?!?!
DeleteBut yeah, It was tedious. Went by pretty fast though!
I hope you are liking the change in scenery. So what exactly is the purpose of testing the charging of battery cells? Is it to make sure they work at certain limits? Best of luck with the last month of your project!
ReplyDeleteYeah, they have to make sure everything works as intended at all points in time before advancing with the project.
DeleteHi, This is Noah from Lutheran High School in Parker again. I was just wondering, will you ever be at a point where it is just all autonomous, or will there always be some kind of manual component?
ReplyDeleteHey I honestly love the progress you have done but really I just spent about ten minutes playing with the fish on your main page. Regardless your research seems in depth as you demonstrate the manual work. My fish died as well.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading my comment,
Sterling
Lutheran High School