User:Mbajzek

Personal Information

My name is Matthew Bajzek and I am currently a senior at Marquette University pursuing degrees in Computer Engineering and Computer Science. I work with Dr. Dennis Brylow, primarily within his research for Xinu.

Summer 2014 - ECS Robotics Module Redesign

Week 00 (05/27/14 - 05/30/14)

Tuesday

• Underwent REU Orientation
• Began planning potential modules

Wednesday

• Made schedule and divided work
• Investigated Scratch and determined its potential as a platform
• Began searching for previous work to utilize when designing course structure

Thursday

• Installed Scratch and began comparing modding potential of versions 1.4 and 2.0
• Began looking into current state of XinuPi

Friday

• Did background research and began investigating a potential alternative to Xinu
• Looked into existing peripheral options, as compared to existing curriculum modules

Week 01 (06/02/14 - 06/06/14)

Monday

• Continued background research, installing OS to Raspberry Pis and investigating its features
• Considered peripheral options and began to draft tentative budget for summer prototypes

Tuesday

• Successfully installed and worked in PiScratch, though with some relatively serious display issues

Wednesday

• Began modifying Scratch 1.4 code (local installation) to get comfortable adding/modifying blocks

Thursday

• Successfully added custom blocks (behavior, appearance, name) to existing block categories, augmented UI

Friday

• Successfully added custom block category, including changes to blocks within category

Week 02 (06/09/14 - 06/13/14)

Monday

• Began reading through PiScratch Python script, considering options for modding PiScratch distribution

Tuesday

• Drafted presentation document for current course learning objectives

Wednesday

• Finalized presentation
• Continued Scratch 1.4 modding (bundling broadcasts)

Thursday

• First REU lunch/talk
• Presentation to Dr. Brylow

Week 03 (06/16/14 - 06/20/14)

Monday

• Considered switch from Scratch/Raspberry Pi to Ardublocks/Arduino

Tuesday

• Organized lab, determined current peripheral availability
• Ordered Arduino Leonardo boards for development

Wednesday

• Investigated relative merits of two platforms for curriculum

Thursday

• Ethical research training
• Configured development version of Maven, Ardublocks, Openblocks

Friday

• Began block development in Modded Ardublocks

Week 04 (06/23/14 - 06/27/14)

Monday

• Participated in Google hangout with Bob Juranitch to discuss project goals and possible module actities
• Narrowed down peripheral list
• Attended REU baseball game

Tuesday

• Attended Dr. Corliss' LaTeX presentation
• Continued Ardublock modifications

Wednesday

• Continued Ardublock modifications
• Read through ECS educational objective documentation

Thursday

• Curriculum discussions
• Ardublock modding

Friday

• Ardublock modding

Week 05 (06/30/14 - 07/04/14)

Out of lab for vacation (hours made up via overtime during other weeks).

Week 06 (07/07/14 - 07/11/14)

Monday

• Brought back up to speed on coding effort
• Began creating poster template

Tuesday

• First steps to "Play Note" block implemented, pending testing
• Started looking for breadboard alternatives for simpler teacher use

Wednesday

• Tested "Play Note", began work on removing pin input, adding full range of notes

Thursday

• Attended research poster presentation
• Added example code

Friday

• Looked into simplifying Theremin, adding to Play Note to add flexibility

Week 07 (07/14/14 - 07/18/14)

Monday

• Struggled with adding a new block (bizarre bug)

Tuesday

• Fixed Monday's bug, discussed project goals/curriculum details as group

Wednesday

• Expanded project blocks for music projects

Thursday

• Attended graduate school discussion
• Made project poster with group
• Finalized some curriculum plans

Week 08 (07/21/14 - 07/25/14)

Monday

• Cleaned up XML (removed blocks)
• Had design discussion

Tuesday

• Began shield design
• Looked into parts
• Looked into pin blocks

Wednesday

• Decided upon shield design

Thursday

• Developed final set of blocks for initial release
• Cleaned up and streamlined code design

Friday

• Poster presentations in Cudahy Hall

Week 09 (07/28/14 - 08/01/14)

Monday

• Added robust error handling to blocks

Tuesday

• Developed prototype shield and prepared demonstrations for presentation

Wednesday

• Finalized error handling
• Presented project to ECS representative and several teachers

Thursday

• Final REU presentations
• Completed final paper

Summer 2011 - Concurrent Embedded Power Control

Week 00 (05/23/11 - 05/27/11)

• Familiarized self with lab hardware and software, including the Linux operating system
• Began investigating source code and looking for possible sources of error
• Developed bash script to test specific cases within source code via looping of xinu-power calls with set delays
• Tested bash script with varied parameters on secondary board, discovering the minimum delay between calls for power cycling (0.015 seconds)
• Began converting bash script to adapted C program to implement future queue systems before implementation into full program set
• Began preliminary searches for queue mechanisms in C language

Week 01 (05/30/11 - 6/03/11)

Tuesday

• Met with mentors and coordinators to discuss program expectations
• Toured the campus with non-Marquette students
• Handled financial paperwork with Human Resources
• Attended lab orientation
• Took the program pre-survey

Wednesday

• Investigated rebooter's execute_command function and xinu-powerd.c in general
• Wrote rough skeleton of possible queue system for backed up commands to prepare for future work
• Searched for power alternatives to potentially replace Baytech RPC22
• Participated in first meeting to coordinate group activities

Thursday

• Continued investigating source code organization
• Attempted to refine queue function in order to insert incoming commands into a 2-dimensional array and then run them sequentially
• Successfully integrated queue function: though inelegant, it allows delay-less calls to the rebooter to execute in sequence as if a sufficient delay was user-provided, cutting out all instances of dropped rebooter calls in limited testing

Friday

• Condensed queue function and documented it with comments
• Added comment documentation throughout major sections of xinu-powerd.c
• Integrated system logging for the special case when a backend is told to turn on or off when already in the requested state
• Wrote a program to randomly request a specified number of events (turning a random backend either on or off) in order to test robustness of queue function
• Ran and recorded cycles of random testing with varying event quantities

Week 02 (06/06/11 - 06/10/11)

Monday

• Began optimization of existing queue function and movement towards more sophisticated version
  • Reduced number of active arrays from three to one
  • Added head/tail variables to eliminate need to constantly reset queue
  • Added system log error message for queue buffer overflow
• Began searching code to try to implement boolean statements regarding status of backends in terminal output function
• Began searching code to try to implement mechanism in queue to wait for success message before continuing
• Wrote testing program to evaluate basic queue functionality and ran tests

Tuesday

• Continued work to make queue dynamic
• Ran additional tests to determine effects of changed parameters in xinu-powerd.c

Wednesday

• Edited rpc.c to verify successful writing to g_dev before returning a value
• Edited xinu-powerd.c queue function to wait for the previous command to affect its backend's state before proceeding
• Changes have created a queue mechanism that functions for cycles with 0.006 seconds delay or above
• Participated in second meeting to coordinate group activities

Thursday

• Disabled xinu-powerd.c's daemon attributes to allow print statements
• Used print statements to start debugging timing-based problems with looping of backend calls
• Streamlined queue function further

Friday

• Continued work on dynamic queue
  • Inserted debug statements into code to determine origins of error
  • Ran testing to debug both main programs with different parameters
  • (Based on what testing there was time for) fixed glitch caused by endless attempts to read unwritten commands
  • (Based on what testing there was time for) Fixed glitch caused by writing commands incompletely and attempting to run them
  • Documented rpc.c's rpc_template method with comments
  • Tested code in and out of daemon mode successfully

Week 03 (06/13/11 - 06/17/11)

Monday

• Ran testing with extreme numbers of commands in order to force queue failure
• Attempted to find a pattern in the failures

Tuesday

• Created rough diagrams of xinu-powerd.c, its queue and execute_command functions, and rpc.c
• Continued debugging queue failures
• Implemented bug fixes
  • Fixed (based on limited testing) the persistent errors that occurred when rpc.c's rpc_template method would attempt to rewrite to g_dev before g_dev had finished outputting its error message
  • Wrote a second do-while loop that separates rpc_template's reading of the first character in its buffer from the reading of the other characters, creating more flexible error handling
  • Streamlined rpc.c to be more easily readable and have more logical variable names

Wednesday

• Continued testing using random cycles from 199 events to 1999 events, both in and out of daemon mode
  • Program snags occasionally upon entering daemon mode
  • When this error does not occur, the program is able to run a delayless cycle with a number of events 20 times larger than the number of slots in the queue without freezing or failing, and (at a minimum) the final state of each backend is accurately set

Thursday

• Determined source of error - a mistake in variable initialization
• Attended "Responsible Conduct of Research" seminar
• Addressed hypothetical situation when an invalid message passes into rpc.c in spite of previous error handling
• Changed rpc.c's delay checker to be clock-based rather than incremental
• Began fighting the series of bugs associated with the clock implementation

Friday

• Created an electronic copy of the state diagram for the power daemon
• Finalized implementation of the clock
• Addressed other minor bugs

Week 04 (06/20/11 - 06/24/11)

Monday

• Worked on electronic diagrams
  • Daemon state diagram
  • xinu-rebootd.c
  • queue()
  • execute_command()
  • rpc.c

Tuesday

• Cleaned out code, removing sections that no longer serve a purpose
  • Effects section of queue
  • CMDBUFLEN overflow error
• Ran testing to verify changes to code
  • Various successful 1-16-event cycle tests
  • Three successful randomized 1999-event cycle tests
  • Five successful tests with 5-10 repeating 32-event-cycles each
• Continued streamlining diagrams

Wednesday

• Downloaded and installed LaTeX on home machine
• Read and reviewed "Enhancing Embedded Processors with Specific Instruction Set Extensions for Network Application" in LaTeX template
• Assessed benefits of infinite-loop-breaking checks in case complete rebooter failure occurs during a response message
• Finalized state machine diagram for rebooter and daemon interactions
• Began formalizing system for documenting test cases based on parameters meant to induce desired failures in order to prove reliability of flow control

Thursday

• Transitioned from Fedora 14 to 15
• Discussed "Enhancing Embedded Processors with Specific Instruction Set Extensions for Network Application" with lab
• Created table for recording failure tests of the rebooter code's error handling
• Added several printf statements to code to assist future debugging of cryptic errors

Friday

• Worked to diagnose connection problems present since switch to Fedora 15
• Added printf statements to accompany syslog information for easier debugging out of daemon mode

Week 05 (06/27/11 - 07/01/11)

Monday

• Discovered work-around for barred IP error message (full solution still needs to be found)
• Tested error cases in state machine
• Worked on mid-program presentation

Tuesday

• Finished mid-program presentation slides
• Began streamlining code and adding comments in preparation for 7/05 code review
• Participated in Ethernet driver code review with lab group

Wednesday

• Finalized mid-program presentation and cleared it with Dr. Brylow
• Continued preparing code for code review
• Organized REU trip to Kopp's

Thursday

• Attended and spoke during REU mid-program presentations
• Read and reviewed "Real-Time Support of Flash Memory File System for Embedded Applications"

Friday

• Read through and cleaned up code

Week 06 (07/05/11 - 07/08/11)

Tuesday

• Attended "Making a Good Research Poster" meeting
• Ran code review for power daemon programs
  • #define changes/additions
  • Comment changes/additions
  • Explicit queue removal
  • Outlets.state request function
  • Header file definitions
  • Removal of strlen()
• Addressed code review concerns
  • #define changes/additions
  • Comment changes/additions
  • Explicit queue removal
  • Removal of strlen()

Wednesday

• Began search for research sources
• Read and reviewed "Analysis of the Use of Declarative Languages for Enhanced Embedded System Software Development"
• Began testing with router pool

Thursday

• Attended REU lunch and lecture regarding computational science outside of academia
• Continued testing with router pool

Friday

• Discussed "Analysis of the Use of Declarative Languages for Enhanced Embedded System Software Development"
• Continued testing with router pool
  • Xest testing appears to be consistently successful for single runs
  • All routers individually respond with power, farbot console fails

Week 07 (07/11/11 - 07/15/11)

Monday

• Continued testing with router pool

Tuesday

• Continued testing with router pool
  • Developed potential fix for xinu-power r## errors

Wednesday

• Investigated a problem Dennis found with frelling's power-cycling capability and the consistency of backends powering down with daemon restarts
  • Added error-catching loop to xinu-powerd.c's init_device() function
  • Cut out xinu-power r##'s check for backend status

Thursday

• Continued testing with router pool
• Uncovered syslog off-by-three error with terminal response

Friday

• Solved syslog issue
  • Success and error messages were overlapping and confusing the system
  • Increased acceptance of lengthy execution times allows successful executions

Week 08 (07/18/11 - 07/21/11)

Monday

• Continued running tests to verify the code's effectiveness and test its limits
  • Success in batchgrade program for up to ~15 active terminals
  • Xest success in all tests run (~20)
    • (Occasional) overnight error still a mystery
    • e2100l problems might be a factor

Tuesday

• Began project poster
• Configured personal laptop software for paper
• Brainstormed xinu-power lst options
  • All backends? Just those that are on?
  • Names? Numbers? Both?
  • Multiple options? (xinu-power l##)

Wednesday

• Began writing code for xinu-power lst
  • Changed valid command parameters to allow new requests
  • Tested out response from outlets.state

Thursday

• Worked on project poster
• Investigated Cert/Xest errors
  • Power does not appear to be the source of the problems
  • Semi-unrelated: standard throughput appears to be 8-9 on/off commands per second

Week 09 (07/25/11 - 07/29/11)

• Vacation
  • Finished project poster

Week 10 (08/01/11 - 08/05/11)

Monday

• Reviewed poster to prepare for presentation
• Began work on formal presentation
• Performed more formal testing of throughput (old and new daemons) for project report and presentation
• Worked on integration of "xinu-power lst" and "xinu-power l##" calls

Tuesday

• Finished presentation slides
  • Integrated quantitative data from testing
• Presented in REU poster session
• Worked on project paper
• Changed "xinu-power r##" calls to be smarter and not waste so much time

Wednesday

• Presented in REU formal presentations
• Worked on project paper

Thursday

• Attended REU formal presentations
• Worked on project paper

Friday

• Completed end-of-program surveys
• Finished and submitted final project paper