Project Development
Assignment Requirements:
Learning Outcomes:
- Implement project plan.
- Apply time management techniques.
- Summarise and communicate the essence of your project development
Questions:
- (1) What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?
- (2) What has worked? what hasn't?
- (3) What questions need to be resolved?
- (4) What will happen when?
- (5) What have you learned?
Answers:
(1) What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?
Completed
- 3D designing for the whole structure/modules.
- 3D printing for 10 modules from White PLA filament.
- Design of the drawers as 2d parts.
- Laser cutted the drawers from Transparent Brown Acrylic sheets of 3 mm.
- RGB wiring and fixation at the back of the structure.
- Designed and soldered the main board (ATMega 328p)
- Tested the main board with a random RGB code.
- Designed and soldered the WIFI board (ESP8266)
- Tested the WIFI board by making a web server.
- The interface website to find and store components
Remaining
- The controller box design and fabrication to host the 2 boards.
- A back cover for the structue to help fix it on walls.
- A single connector/adaptor for powering up the system.
- Programming the 2 boards to perform the main functions.
- The presentation slide and the final video.
(2) What has worked? what hasn't?
Worked
- Smooth assemble of the modules and drawers.
- RGB leds are blinking well at each drawer
- The main board worked well with several codes.
Hasn't Worked
- The WIFI board had some issues while uploading codes with my laptop, but I used another laptop for uploading codes, and it worked well.
- There was a short circuit in some RGBs, I checked them all and removed the bad ones.
- The final codes had some bugs and I had to solve them with the help of our instructor.
(3) What questions need to be resolved?
- Where to fix the controller box?
- How to fix the RGB leds on each module?
- How to make a simple slide using Photoshop and how it will include all the weeks.
- How to power up the system and where?
- How to make a simple interface?
- How to fix the project on walls?
- How to organize and manage all cables and wiring?
(4) What will happen when?
Our instructor helped us manage and organize the remaining tasks by creating a project tracker sheet using Microsoft Ecxel. We set a name for each task, short description, milestones and deadline for completion. It helped us alot knowing the step we are in and what are the next steps to be completed.
I recommend everyone to use a time management tool/app to be able to track his progress and meet deadlines.
(5) What have you learned?
- Documentation is an important tool to keep record of our work, trials and failure. It will be difficult to document all the work at the end, it is recomeended to document during development to make it smooth and effortless.
- Spiral development is a key skill and a way of thinking, I should begin with tiny tasks to be completed the increase no. of tasks with time. Spiral means to make small things work well then you add more and more.
- It is importatnt to start working on the final project from day one and complete its tasks within the Fab Academy Classes.
- We do not need to re-invent the wheel, first explore what others did and what the did not and try to build solutions upon.
- Making a simple and full integrated system is better than make high intelligent and more complex sub-systems without any integartion. The world does not need separate and independant systems