Weekly Update #5: Fixing the Week 4 Code

Hi there,

Week five of the project has just started, but we've made a lot of progress with the heart monitor. We worked on the code that previously crashed the device and got it stop overloading the Arduino. Mike pinpointed the section of the code that caused the failure and fixed how the Arduino was storing and processing data.

Before the code was fixed, the Arduino was storing data in an array. It was constantly moving every value in the array up a position in the array and adding a new value to the end of the array. It was trying to do this over a hundred times per second. The code now has the Arduino processing just one data point at a time, lessening the load on the device.

So far, the Arduino can detect when there is an absence of the wearer's heart rate. When we tested the device, sudden removal of the sensors resulted in the notification sounds and message to go off. The device can't detect an irregularity in the wearer's heart rate yet. There has been code written for it, but it doesn't work quite right. Hopefully, it will be worked out in week six. We are also going to be working on the cell phone app in week six.