The most significant challenge for now are figuring out how to prototype the mechanism that locks and unlocks the deadbolt. None of us have any experience with 3D printing or CAD tools, so designing the actual locking mechanism that is driven by the servo motor will require a lot of learning how to use the necessary tools. We plan to mitigate these risks by doing research in how to operate the 3D printer in the TechSpark space, as well as how to design using CAD tools. In the worst case, we can ask a staff member to operate the 3D printer for us so that we only need to worry about the design itself.
After the proposal presentation, we made a pretty large change to the design of our project. Instead of using a camera to do facial recognition on any approaching person, we pivoted to using a NFC reader that users can touch their phone to. We decided on this shift because the facial recognition approach would require 100% accuracy to ensure that no unauthorized person could open the lock, which is extremely difficult to attain in our project timeline. In addition, using a NFC reader speeds up the door opening process, since the logic behind authenticating the NFC tag is much simpler than any facial recognition algorithm we would be running. Pivoting to the NFC approach means that we will have to do additional research on how the technology works, since none of us are familiar with it. However, this will be well handled, as we will simply be reallocating the time we would have used researching facial recognition algorithms to researching NFC instead.
Updated Gantt Chart:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11u0CH7wN9QSDZPVNC4fUqijgiDlvcCUx_7uLzX8Nlr4/edit?usp=sharing