This week, Gator Waves continued working towards the completion of the final design. The mechanical engineers helped with repairing a broken solenoid, as well as protecting the fragile wires of the shielded cable by applying a glue coating. They also spent some time machining brackets.

The electrical engineers focused on debugging a number of issues that arose while using the full electronic set-up with the power supply. Some of the problems included issues with the strain gauge wires and radio-frequency interference with the instrumentation amplifier. By isolating different parts of the system, consulting experts in the ECE department, and researching high frequency interference, it was determined that a low-pass filter was necessary for the correct operation of the instrumentation amplifier.

Also, the strain gauge wires have been replaced with shielded cables, which has improved the clarity of the signal. With these issues now taken care of, the team is ready to verify and order the PCB and begin tuning the timing of the controller once the final housing is done.