The weather took it’s toll on the school this week, with quite a blizzard on Monday. It took an extra day to dig us out of all the snow so the students had an abbreviated time to work on their projects. Still, worked progressed, and it was nice to have students back in the shop after the February break.
Senior Adam Lewis was working with an ESP32 to control his circuitry via the web:
After an extended break due to the blizard, I did not have a ton of time to work this week, but still managed to get some work done in the two days that I had. On Wednesday, when we first got back, I was focused on getting back on track. To start out, for some reason the ESP32-S2 that I was using was not connecting to WiFi. With the code I have, the serial moniter should print a period every half a second until the WiFi connects and normally this takes only 2-3 seconds, but for some reason it was cycling forever.
After trying a couple of solutions I decided to try a couple of the other ESP32s we had in the shop and discovered that only two of the five them worked with the exact same code. I dont know exacly why this is, but I just moved on with one of the working ones.
After trying and failing to make the web server from the old guide for two entire weeks, I decided to move on and get some other code to try. For some reason, the first time I tried this new code it worked perfectly and managed to load the web server without using LittleFS. This webserver was just an example to turn on and off two different LEDs that were connected to my breadboard, but in the future I hope to do a lot more with the web server uploading my Strava data to it to display it in LEDs.
Junior Jonas Wirz continued the Autonomous Vehicle Project:
The golf cart moves again this week. We finally attached all large cables leading from the positive and negative terminals to and from the BMS. We also got a technical license from BeamNG drive to train our golf cart in their game. I spent one day working with Miles to attach the remaining wires to…
The golf cart moves again this week. We finally attached all large cables leading from the positive and negative terminals to and from the BMS. We also got a technical license from BeamNG drive to train our golf cart in their game.
I spent one day working with Miles to attach the remaining wires to the BMS. This was very terrifying due to our past experiences but we were extra careful this time. We started by just tapping individual wires on the BMS. We were looking for any sparks or that hissing sound but we did not hear anything. We screwed all four wires onto the BMS. Then we needed to attach the remaining positive wire. Miles put that wire on while I wasn’t there but he said that it didn’t spark at all and the golf cart was given power. This was great news to hear after it was broken for a while.
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I spent the next day on BeamNG. On BeamNG there is a tech car, which is basically a base car that can be modified. I went into the code of the engine and inputted the torque and engine settings for the golf cart. I spent a while just changing values but then I realized that nothing was getting changed in the game and it was because I was in a zipped file. I then unzipped the file and edited the code and then zipped the folder again. When I did that, the car no longer showed up in the game. That is where I ended off but I think it is an issue with syntax and there are errors that are stopping it from showing up.
And finally, Sophomore Dom was finalizing his PCB for the LED Light Box Project:
Monday an Tuesday snowed. No school.
I’m going to work on creating my PCB. I have all my components done.
I had to add a component of the light sensor. It took quite some time finding a CAD model for it but I eventually did. Now I’m going to be working on the schematic for the PCB.
We continue to work with the Freshmen as they gobble up all the curriculum we throw at them. These students are a great addition to the shop! All for now!
MVTHS Engineering 
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