Individual Assignment

Complete your final project tracking your progress.

Complete your final project tracking your progress.

Triage

I had been working towards a different final project throughout the Academy and with two weeks left I decided on another project. To be able to make a whole final project from scratch in two weeks I needed to determine the urgency of each task and prioritize them accordingly.

My plan was to go through the first spiral and make a minimum viable product with a functioning CFT box and functioning electronics displaying data on an OLED screen.

I spent some time working in Fusion 360 making the CFT box. I am not yet comfortable working in Fusion and it takes me a while to do simple stuff. So, instead of spending too much time in Fusion I decided to create a vector drawing of the box in Inkscape. I then brought the Inkscape .svg into VCarve to make the toolpaths.

I am comfortable working in Inkscape and managed to make the design in less than two hours.

I needed support brackets so I made simple blockout models in Tinkercad and smoothed the models in Blender. This process was pretty fast and I got all three support brackets modeled in one day.

Now I needed the electronics to work. I got all sensors and electronics working on a breadboard in about two days. Again, pressed for time, I used Inkscape to create the PCB designs. I was using components I had already used in other projects and had all footprints available in Inkscape projects so I copied the footprints and routed the connections.

Once I had all my PCBs milled and soldered I needed to make a casing for the electronics. Again, using Tinkercad and Blender I made a housing for the electronics. It took me about 3 hours to model the casing.

With everything milled, 3d printed, electronics working and integrated I had two days to spare to work on my presentation slide and video. I managed to finish everything the night before presenting the final project.

Everything went according to plan, I had a minimum viable product with all the features I was hoping for.

Document as you go along

I split my project in a few tasks

• CFT box
• Milling the CFT box
• 3d printed support brackets
• 3d print the support brackets
• Assembling the box with support brackets
• Get electronics to work on a breadboard
• Design the PCBs
• Milling the PCBs
• 3d printed housing for the electronics
• Integrate everything

I documented each task as I went along. I took pictures and wrote a short description of what I was doing and documented my progress on my website.

Demand- vs Supply-side Time Management

Like I mentioned above, I did not have a lot of time to finish my project. I was very aware of the time constraints and made sure each task was completed in a timely manner so I could continue on to the next task.

I sketched a simple draft of the days I had to work with and the tasks I needed to finish. I made sure to give each task enough time and also gave my self a leeweigh of at least a half a day for each task just in case.

Thankfully everything went according to plan and I was able to complete all tasks in time.

Spiral development

Throughout development I was thinking "Spiral". For example, with the Fusion file, I just wanted to make tbe box in Fusion for the first spiral of the CFT box. Then I went on to spiral two of the CFT box with Inkscape. The same with the 3d support brackets. The first sprial for the 3d brackets was making a simple blockout models in Tinkercad. If I had time I would smooth out the models in Blender for spiral two, which I managed to do.

The same goes for the 3d printed casing. First spiral was a blockout model in Tinkercad and spiral two was making the model nicer in Blender.

For the electronics the first spiral was getting everything working on a breadboard. The second spiral was milling individual PCBs for each node.

The construction of the whole project, designing, milling and assembly were all made thinking about spiral development. In the end I got everything working and I consider the final product a first spiral in this project.

For future development of this project I will continue thinking in spirals. In spiral two of the project I want automatic compost harvesting. The third spiral will have networking capabilities, displaying the data online.

Serial vs Parallel tasks

The plan was to work each task in a serial operation. I wanted to finish the CFT box before moving onto the electronics.

I did not work on any tasks in parallel. Every task was completed and done before I continued on to the next task.

System Integration & Packaging: it takes more time than you think

For system integration, getting everything assembled and integrated I gave the task plenty of time because I thought I might run into obstacles.

But everything actually went pretty smoothly. All design, milling, 3d printing and assembly was completed with time to spare.

So, it actually took less time than I thought.

Video Compression

Throughout the Academy I have been using FFMPEG to compress my videos. All my videos did not have any audio.

For the final presentation video I did have audio and everything seemed fine but when I tried viewing the video on my iPhone I did not get any sound. The audio worked fine on Android and PC but not on iPhones.

I tried a bunch of different compression settings in FFMPEG but was unable to get audio to work on iPhone.

Finally I found this website freeconvert.com where I was able to compress my video to below 10mb and the audio works on all devices.

Finish Quality

I am very pleased with the finish quality of my final project. I like the size of the CFT and the overall look, I even laser rastered an image on the box to make it look extra nice.

I am also pleased with the quality of the 3d support brackets. They both look nice and are sturdy and actually serve a purpose.

The quality of the electronics is on par. Everything works, the sensors take readings, the OLED displays the data and a button toggles between sensors.

Overall, tha finish quality of the project is top notch and to my liking.