This site is currently under construction so there are updates to come soon (still no data...)
Development of the project
From August to January, we spent most of the time developing the project and planning the whole manufacturing.
Mechanics
August - October:
We looked for the material we were going to make the rotors out of.
We had 2 solutions:
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Wood (cut using a laser cuter)
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Plastic (with a 3D printer)
To make the 26 contacts in the rotors we wanted to use copper rivets.
We also wanted to design a PCB (using KiCAD) (as we finally did for the external electronic circuit) that would be in the rotor to change the information (transforming A into E in the rotor 1 for example).
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September - October:
We discovered the german project Weingarten.
The head of project, Mr Ertel, redirected us towards another project, more recent: Enigma RDE.
We got in touch with Mr Wiest, who was the leader of this new project.
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November:
Mr Wiest gave us an access to their 3D plans (that were not online yet).
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December:
We were allowed to use our school’s 3D printer.
But first we had to find out how it worked (nobody in the school knew how to use it) and most importantly we had to repair it (it was kind of broken).
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January:
We could finally begin the printings!
At the same time we ordered the components (rivets, electric cable,...).
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But we still had one question left: How do we make the rotors turn?
At first we thought about electromagnets but we abandoned the idea because it was not powerful enough or too expensive.
We finally chose to use a step motor which would be controlled by the RaspberryPi.
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Electronics
Remplir
Digital
August :
Idea to use a Raspberry Pi 4 micro-computer in order to control our machine.
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September - October :
Purchase of the RPi and a book explaining how to use it.
Initialization of the RPi (OS, getting started).
First attempts at programming something on Python.
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November - December :
A lot of attempts to use the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi (the component of the RPi which allow the computer to communicate with its environment).
Critical issue : the GPIO doesn’t contain enough pins to control the whole machine we planned to build. We needed more pins, and we couldn’t achieve the pin-extension socket we bought previously to do its job :( . We found this tutorial and bought a little device called «I2C port expander» which allowed us to get more pins.
The program is still taking shape.
Purchase of a little computer screen which is planned to be eventually plugged on the RPi. Purchase of the motor.
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January :
The program is made fully operational in order to test the machine, which we planned to build during February holidays. It is able to turn on-off 26 LED connected on the RPI GPIO pins and the I2C device, and to control the stepper motor with remaining pins.
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February :
Building the Machine (with a lot of issues...) ; the program does its job! Some minor corrections are made.
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April :
In prevision of the CGenial contest, the program is in-depth updated. The whole interface is redesigned and a lot of options are added. The program is now way more ergonomic.
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