Toll Booth Project
Explanation
For this project, there were many variables. There were the inputs, outputs, Qa and Qb. The inputs of this machine we made were integrated as limit switches, open/close switches, and Qa/Qb outputs of the flip flops. The outputs were defined as motor open, motor close, and gate open, gate close. From these, we constructed a transition table that held all of this information which we could derive our un-simplified expressions from.
The machine of the "Toll Booth" was a considerably simple construction that would function off of four states. The idea is that the arm would open, hit the open limit switch, then the arm would close, then hit the closing limit switch and repeat the circuit as wanted. The limit switches were in place to sense the open or close limit, and sort of trigger the proceeding state.
The machine of the "Toll Booth" was a considerably simple construction that would function off of four states. The idea is that the arm would open, hit the open limit switch, then the arm would close, then hit the closing limit switch and repeat the circuit as wanted. The limit switches were in place to sense the open or close limit, and sort of trigger the proceeding state.
Conclusion
This project was, in a sense, not necessarily the hardest but definitely required some extra critical thinking along with some extra work. The design process for this project was slightly more intense than normal, due to the complexity of all the parameters that needed to come together perfectly. After we got the packet, we began to get a general understanding for what the projects goal was, then we started to derive a transition table. From this table, we we able to get simplified expressions which we simplified using boolean alebra. These simplified expressions allowed us to create a circuit on multisim and this in my opinion, was the hardest part. As i said before, this project has many intricate parts that need to come together perfectly and the complexity of the multisim was something that we needed to pay close attention to, as one little wrong wire on the whole schematic could cause a fault in the whole circuit. After this was complete, we built the machine, constructed the circuit on the bread-board, and uploaded our circuit to the chip. Some simple mistakes we made included basic things from not connecting the wire to the correct pin, to not correctly powering the chips, and using the wrong motor wire. This project is similar to previous projects because it does follow the same process of constructing truth tables, getting equations, building in multisim, and applying it to a breadboard but is also very different because there were so many moving parts to this project. One thing about state machines that's different is the "truth table". Its called a transition table, has more rows and columns with more numbers and variables. At first, this scared me but the more we learned about them, the more i figured it out and understood it better. This project also gave me a better understanding on state machines and working in groups allowed for me to be corrected when i made a mistake that i could learn from and not do again. Reading schematics isn't as hard as i originally thought it would be, as long as you pay close attention to which wires are what and where they go, i realized that i wouldn't have a problem building off of a schematic. i wouldn't say that this project was definitely easier or harder than any others, it just required a little more attention to detail than others. Something i would definitely do next time is not be absent two days in the middle of the project. I was still able to finish it, obtain the needed signatures, and understand it, but would of been much more easy if i had another two days to do it over rushing to get everything done the day i got back. Fortunately, it all worked out and have a confident understanding of state machines. Overall, this i liked this project. State machines are an interesting concept and it was neat to see everything come together and see the machine our group created work.