Project Development
In this week we have to complete our final project tracking the progress.
So the questions which is needed to be answered are
What tasks have been completed and what tasks remains
What has worked and what has not?
what questions needs to be resolved
what will happen when?
What have you learned?
What tasks have been completed and what tasks remains
What has worked and what has not?
Since this time due to covid-19 we were asked to make the final project first so the tasks which i had set to do in the final project became my priority to complete. But it was very diffficult for me to go and work directly to the final project becuase we did not have the knowledge of various assignments and that i could experience while working on the project.
So i had thought of a baby cradle design initially which i made during Make something big week and i wanted to use that design but when i cut it then realized that the size is very big and the motor which i initiailly intended to incorpoate at the base will be not feasilble. So i had to drop that idea and came out with a new design where the rocking mechanism will be there just with a small movement of the baby.
I had to make the new design for one more reason because the leg of the earlier cradle had broke down duirng the pressfit operation. So i thought that it is better to move to a new design.
Earlier Design
New design
I have installed a ESP-32 CAM for the real time monitoring of the baby but the limitation which i realised is that the live streaming of the babt can be seen on the particular IP address within a zone like a Laocal Area Network. That streaming which i wanted to put through a wifi camera to be seen from anywhere in the world could not be done as the streaming can se seen on the Local area Netwrok through Esp 32 cam. For future exploration i would explore about how ESP32 Cam can be streamed live over the wifi network across any website.
what will happen when?
As i had made the Gantt chart i am sharing the screen shot for that. The gantt chart was made with timline in mind but that time line went haywire in the covid era. So iniatially i thought of completing my all assignments first within the stipulated time simulateneously exploring about the possibilites i could learn about my project. But it could not happen and we had to first do the final project and then explored the assignment part from there.
What have you learned?
This fabacademy course has boosted my confidence a lot,just 8 months back i had no clue what an Arduino board was, how an IC worked and how we make toolpaths and operate the machines availaible in the AKGEC FABLAB. But now i can design my own PCB program it to do anything, i can now make various projects using Arduino Boards, NIODEMCU and ESP 32CAM. Moulding and Casting week was also awesome where we made and experimented a lot. Initialli it was totally theritocal knowledge which i had but now i can feel the difference bertween practical and theoritcal knowledge.
The thing which i have learnt is about the exploration capability. Initillay it was very uncomforatble to search on the web about the unknown things related to the assignments but in thlast few months i have developed a habit to explore about the technology and understand it, such an attitude was missing earlier.
COVID 19 and Project Management
The pandemic had slowed down the pace of our work. We were mentally prepared that we have to finish all the things before june but then this pandemic wrecked havoc and it was a total precuationary lockdown in India. We were not allowed to even step out of our homes and it was so sudden that we could not even collect any kit from the labs so that we can work from our homes.
The Niel's lecture were always on time and the regional review were always taking place on time and we were finding out how we can do the work online and complete it when the lab opens.
The problem statred coming to us even before the lockdown as the supplies from CHINA were not reaching to us. One more problem we encountered was that we had to do our final project and all the assignments without the physical presence of any instructor.
It was a very big issue for us since we had to rely on the previous students pages and online tutorials and had to complete the assignments using the online guidance. For atleast 2 months with limited access to the lab, there were only three students who were working in the 50 acre campus of the AKGEC Fablab and that was an enjoyment as well.
So we had to completely change the startegy of ours and started to work with the new timelines. But we did our final project before time with a lot of troubleshooting and then we started to complete all the assignments and we completed all of them as we had prepared a time limit to complete the assignmets. The presence of other members of the college in the after months also helped us as we could remain in the lab for longer durations. For prevoius fabacademy cycles, our fablab used to be open for 24 hours on request of the students but this time we only had few hours daily so we had to speed up the process and manage the time to complete the tasks.
To complete the project in given timline and limited access to our lab, i had to go for parallel development approach. But first I had to design and fabricate the new cradle for which it took me 4 days since i had only two pieces of wood left and i had to made sure that nothing goes wrong. To make sure that nothing goes wrong i had to cut my design on laser cutter just to see if there is no mismatch. Once my cradle was cut and assembled as per my design, i was full of confidence. And then i started developing my PCB and the design for 3D printing , as 3d priting takes time to complete so in that time i used to work on the programming as well.
We had to ask for the permission to come to the fablab on weekends as well and the management was kind enough to give us the permission even though it was a lockdown announced for the weekends but we managed to come and it gave us some more time to work in the lab.
It was an exprience to work simultaeneoulsy on technologies like PCB design and fabrication and 3d priting and then testing the programs which were created. The documentation was also an important activity and we had to make sure that we make videos and click pictures for the documentation part as well.
After the project presentation was complete and then we had to work on the assignments which were left. for that we took the series approach and completed the assignments one by one. we completed all those assignments first which were actually used in our final project as we had some idea about them already.
The assignments like Molding and Casting, wildcard week, Interface and application programming, ,machine design were taken at the end. we had completed all the assignments and their documentation before the timeline issued by fabacademy.
We really worked hard as a team since there were only three of us in the lab and we had to ask one another to click photos and make videos and we were actually helping ourselves through the debugging process as well and the best part was that none of us denied to help. To achieve success in a short time, it was important to have a good team and i was fortunate enough to have one.