Hello! I am Akanksha, a co-lead of the software sub-team, and a sophomore studying Computer Science and Mathematics. I joined C2S2 last Fall and have learnt a lot about chip design and its development process. As the software team, our main goal is to come up with a testing infrastructure for the chip and make sure all of its components are communicating with each other properly.

We have therefore till now been working on smaller projects like calculators and crash detectors to understand how to work with the chip and gain some experience coding in C++. However, things are escalating this semester because ... (drumroll please) we have a campus partner now! Since we are now working with the Lab of Ornithology, we have a better understanding of our project's software needs and because of all the work we have been doing before, are well equipped to come up with the functionality required. We are now working on a Relative position estimator to track the movement of the Scrub Jays and potentially collect attitude and audio data from the tagged chip.

We are primarily working with the Uno R3 microcontroller. One of the problems we were facing is the issue of GPS tracking. While tracking using a GPS module is highly accurate, it consumes a lot of power and has other weight considerations. Therefore, we have decided to work with an error logging procedure. The idea is that the microcontroller starts at a known position and is then moved around campus. We log the error of our R3 approximation function using another device and realign the estimated position of the R3 function to the true coordinates. My co-lead Ananya and I have been working on the external communication capabilities of our crash detector which we are hoping to use for the relative position estimator as well. This will help us store the data as well as transform it post collection for further analysis.

Another goal for the software team is to write code which can be easily translated to other environments. We want to create programs that can be run independently of the platform. We have been focusing on better documentation habits so that all the code we are writing for Arduino boards can be translated to our custom chip without changing the structure massively.

Looking forward, we will be working on figuring out how to translate the 2D mapping we have to a 3D setting as well as test our code by moving around campus. I also think the software team will be collaborating more with the system architecture team more and look forward to watching our project come to life. This was my first semester being a co-lead and I am enjoying being part of this cool community of chip design enthusiasts. This is definitely an interesting time to be in this field and I am very grateful to be exposed to this field so early on in my CS career. (Go C2S2!!!!)

Hello, I am Sana Chawla, a member of the Software subteam of C2S2 and a sophomore studying Computer Science. I joined C2S2 this semester with the goal of learning about and gaining experience in the chip design process. So far, as a new member I have had the chance to learn a lot about the industry and its various fields, like analog design, microarchitecture etc.

Michael (my subteam partner) and I began the semester working on a crash detector to get acquainted with using the UNO R3 microcontroller, C++ coding, etc. The crash detector code uses the timestamp and x, y, z acceleration values which are available as inputs from the accelerometer to calculate the relative position and velocity by integration. A crash is then "detected" if the change in acceleration is found to meet a certain predetermined threshold. This served as a very insightful first project for me as a C2S2 member, as I gained a lot of experience in C++ coding and using Arduino libraries like Adafruit.

Once the C2S2 campus partner was finalized, we have switched our focus to begin working on a relative position estimator which is more in line with the needs of the partner, the Lab of Ornithology. The position estimator would be used to determine the relative position of the Scrub Jays.

Even though I have been in C2S2 for only one semester now I have gained a lot of insight into the semiconductor industry. I look forward to working on the position estimator project and possibly collaborating with the System Architecture team to assist our campus partner with the project. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn about the chip design process and broaden my knowledge in this field.