Design Progress | Weeks 10 & 11

Dates: 10/22/25 - 11/04/25

The team took two weeks with the objective of having NAVI assembled by November 5th. While we were not able to fully meet this goal, large strides were made toward it. From my end, the brains of NAVI have been essentially completely finished. This includes the Power module (battery, boost, charging), user interface components (momentary and latch push buttons), motor infrastructure (motors, controllers and Darlington array), IR sensor infrastructure (JST connector ready IR sensors and ADC multiplexer), and control module with the raspberry pi pico 2. Below are a sequence of images from when I first started the design with the power module (added video for confirmation of functionality), then the completed design. (There appears to be black or dark residue around many solder points, this is just raised permanent marker from where I traced my connections before soldering them to the board.)

First the power module on the board:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSsfEMiR7Bk

Then an example of how I visualized traces before soldering (the residue visible on many joints)

The back of the (near) completed perfboard design:

And finally the (near) completed top of the perfboard design.

The final steps are to add filter capacitors and voltage dividers to necessary points in the circuit, fit the unit into the NAVI enclosure, and begin testing.