Shanel:

This week, I finally saw my parts in action on the real-life prototype. With all the parts for the vertical design printed and working, I can now start planning out the horizontal layout. It’s exciting to see things coming together!

Now that I have the vertical parts for movement ready, I am gonna work further on to work on the horizontal parts and design.

Azi:

Making the Elevator Simulation

This week, I had to take the elevator system code we already had and turn it into a proper simulation. Because all of the physical elevator isn’t ready yet, and we still needed to show something for proof of concept, and test the system. So, instead of the hardware, I got everything working virtually to demonstrate how the system would actually run.

What I Did

I started by tweaking the original code, which was made for the real elevator setup. I adapted it so the platform movements could run virtually instead. That means I programmed the horizontal and vertical movements to work in a simulated way, but it still follows the same logic the real elevator will use.

Next, I hooked up the database to the simulation. Now, when a car gets parked, it marks the spot as “occupied,” and when it’s retrieved, the spot goes back to “available.” Everything updates in real-time, so it looks and works just like the real thing.

How It All Works

The whole setup ties together the movements, the database, and the interface. When you park a car in the simulation, you’ll see the platform move, the parking spot status update, and the system issue a receipt. When you retrieve a car, it does the same in reverse—moves the platform, updates the spot, and resets everything.

Demonstration

To explain all this, I made a two videos:

• One shows how a car gets parked. The platform moves, the database updates, and the spot turns red in the interface to show it’s taken.
• The other one shows the retrieval process—getting the car back, the spot turning green, and the platform resetting.

What We Have Now

The simulation works perfectly and shows exactly how the real elevator system will run. Even though the physical setup isn’t ready yet, this simulation is a solid stand-in and makes it easy to see how the system handles parking and retrieval from start to finish.