20. Project development

Time

As on 07/06/2019, I have 10 days to complete my project work. My presentation is on 17/06/2019.

Procurement

Completed about 90 percent of the procurement for the Project
Items that are to be purchased from outside the lab
1. Rotary Encoder - done 2. Laser Module -done 3. Bearings required if any -Not done

Engineering

The engineering part remains a lot shrouded in dark. How am I gonna make the turning mechanism ?
I would be needing two turning independent axes.
How am I going to keep the instrument in level position ?…would I be needing plate level screws for adjustment.
At least I am convinced that I can use Atmega 328p for the board.
What material am I going to use for the project…Wood, Acrylic or PLA ?

What material shall I use ?

Presently we dont have a working LASER machine in our lab. So options are less until an alternate arrangement is made. My best thinking tells me to either wait till the design is over or cutting with Shopbot in Acrylic or go for 3D printing.The issue that went with 3D printing was that all we had is one working 3D printer (Ultimaker) and its results are not fully relaible. I would say it has only 50 percent success rate. The time taken too would be too much. Yadu was consulted and his advice was that go for Acrylic. Rahul too suggested that upon completion of the 3D design the parts can be cut in acrylic. The decision for the right material was reserved for the later.

Scheduling

Before starting it was clear that things I can’t have a detailed and elaborate plan with such vagueness in everything. And process like designing,CNC fabrication, electronics design, programming and testing can take hours or days. I could not fix clear schedule for these processes. All I have decided that I would work in spiral development pattern. I would start with all process, all of which can be started parallely. The advantage with this approach was that I won’t lose the nerve in worst scenarios. I knew I am going to have sleepless hours next week. I began with a basic planning outline

Designing and fabrication - 07/06/2019 to 10/06/2019 (4 days)
Assembly and extra slack - 11/06/2019 (1 day)
Electronics design and PCB fabrication - 12/06/2019 to 13/06/2019 (2 days)
Programming and testing - 13/06/2019 to 15/06/2019 (3 days)
Video and slide preparation - 16/06/2019 (1 day)