This week was a mad dash to finish the prototype. My group struggled immensely with getting our ESP8266 WiFi Module to work with our Arduino code, and half of our prototype was dependent on the WiFi working, as it was needed to send the email to Professor Bisesti to alert her about a book coming close to the RFID sensor. We spent many hours combing through our code, but we could not find any glaring errors. Eventually, Professor Bisesti ordered us a new ESP8266, but this time ordered one with an embedded microcontroller to use in place of the Arduino. Once we switched to using this part, the code worked instantly and our microcontroller immediately connected to the WiFi.
After successfully establishing a WiFi connection, our next problem stemmed from the content of the email. The alert email is supposed to send the Unique Identifier (UID) of the RFID tag, the associated book title, and the time of detection. However, we could not figure out how to successfully pair the UID array with the book title array, and the emails were only sending the UID and time detected. After realizing our error was one incorrect equal sign, our code ran correctly, and our prototype finally worked as intended! The next couple of days were then spent testing our prototype, making our poster, and finalizing our Digication portfolio.
Our final prototype!
To celebrate the end of our time in Costa Rica, we all went out to dinner with Professor Bisesti and her sister. We shared a lot of laughs and reminisced on our time well spent.
I am so thankful for this Costa Rican study abroad experience: I made 9 new friends, deepened my knowledge about medical devices and the Engineering Design Process, and experienced a new culture. This was a 4-week adventure I will never forget.