The most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project might be the complexity of the design. Mechanically and Electronically it’s a little complex and out of our comfort zone, the most difficult part that could risk the feasibility is most likely the integration and getting software + firmware + hardware all working cohesively. To manage these risks, we are doing our best to separate each category of the design into different areas of responsibility so that each person will be accountable and an “expert” at their tasks. This will help us when debugging when it comes to the integration stage. Our contingency plan would be scaling down, we are prepared for the firmware and software part to be complicated so we are prepared to drop the “updating” nature of LivePin, and start with pre fed images to replicate on the board, without the human aspect and the “live” feature.
Yes, through concept sketching we found that some sort of clamping mechanism was necessary for the pinboard to stay upright, and we also found the need of limit switches in our design to mitigate the risk of the gantry from damaging itself, and also for the carriage to be able to “home” itself. This change was very necessary, in order for us to have a way to initially find where the carriage is in terms of its cartesian coordinates. This incurs the cost of a couple limit switches which are relatively cheap (less than 15 bucks total).