// Cambridge, MA

week 11: networking // communications

this week's assignment was to design, build, and connect wired or wireless node(s) with network or bus addresses and a local interface.

my goal was to create a device capable of making a web interface to play media in situations where you have no wifi (i.e on the subway, while hiking, etc)

i obtained an esp32s3 for this purpose, but unfortunately it didn't come with the optional SD card reader module. so i designed my own board with the external SD card reader that the harvard lab did have in stock:

and then got the board designed and printed on the roland, which is excitingly becoming pretty easy to do.

i tried and tried to write code to read data from the SD card, but no matter what i tried it wouldn't work :(

i confirmed with a multimeter that the printed board had good connections; that the board worked by flashing the on-board LED; and even by reprinting the board with a new card reader module. alas, nothing worked.

at this point, time was running out, so i commented out my code to return to later and instead just kept what was needed to write a simple interface where my esp32 had a network address.

i flashed the code and used it to say hello to my friend ben i was getting dinner with.

kind of a disappointing week as i wasn't able to get to the bottom of why my board wasn't working, but still accomplished the "hello world" (or in this case "hi ben") version of the assignment!