Summarise and communicate the essence of your project development

Today is my last official day at the Fab Academy and it's time to take a look back on this final project.

What is the deadline? How much time do I have left?

For me the deadline was June 12 because I start my new job as a fablab manager on the 13th! Since my lamp is finished (and working) my work is almost done. I still need to do my video and finish up on some documentation but that I can do from home.

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

The lamp is done but I still want to add internet connectivity to it. I'll have to do a second board with an ESP and develop an app later. But this is something for another spiral.

What has worked?

My design worked really well. All the pieces fit nicely and I had almost no adjustments to make. I hesitated to do a 3D model but it really helped and I'm glad I did.

Making a test board to make a "Hello World" of the component was also pretty useful. Although it didn't help prevent evey problem I had later.

I was also able to document as I go pretty easely. I found my rythm.

What hasn't worked?

My time management wasn't bad since I managed to finish on time, but I have to admit, almost no task took the time I thought it would... Some were easier but a lot were much trickier. I also had to resize my first spiral to make it fit in the timing.

What questions still need to be resolved?

I have improvement ideas but there are no remaining issues that need resolving.

What have you learned?

I have learned a lot about managing a fabrication project from start to finish. I now have a better idea of how long each step takes and in what order I need to do them in.

What I found very challenging was to visualize and model the lamp and make sure everything is held together, that there is enough space for all the pieces and that basically all these components fit together. And modeling it in Fusion was sooooooo useful.

I also feel like I have improved on all the other techniques I have used during the development. As for most Fab Academy projects, I've had a lot of problems and solving them taught me a lot.

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