Team Progress
This week our team worked together to complete the Design Review Report. After discussing with the course staff, we narrowed our use case to be primarily for billiard players. This way, our use-case requirements and report could be more specific in defending in what we presented.
Risk Mitigation
Now that the ESP32 has arrived some risks shift from theoretical to physical. Soldering errors and damaged components during assembly are a concern, since short circuits and weak connections could cause further damage later on and become difficult to diagnose. To mitigate this we have spare components for most hardware pieces, so that we are able to isolate errors to components and switch them out if necessary. Another risk is that the software transfer protocol in the current version of the application doesn’t work with the ESP32, and we can mitigating this risk by adapting the firmware and software to the hardware based on our testing this upcoming week.
Changes
Narrowed our primary use case to billiard players. However, we still noted that CapSure has many other applications but aren’t directly supported by our requirements.
Weekly Prompt
Part A: CapSure is designed to help billiard players capture and review shots without having to record an entire practice session. This need is not limited to one location or type of player. Billiards is played recreationally and competitively in many countries, so the system should be simple enough to use without requiring advanced technical knowledge or expensive equipment. The recordings can be transferred directly to a phone over Wi-Fi, which avoids relying on cloud services or a constant internet connection. This makes the product more practical in pool halls, homes, or other environments where internet access may be unreliable. Keeping the system lightweight and built around a standard baseball cap also helps make it portable and usable across different settings.
Part B: CapSure addresses the desire to preserve memorable shots while respecting social expectations of shared playing spaces. Players may have different attitudes towards being recorded, and our intended use therefore involves informing participants as they are recording and making footage easily able to be discarded. The outward-facing indicator makes active capture readily visible, while local storage and user-controlled export give the wearer control over whether footage is shared. CapSure’s accessible physical controls allow players to save a shot without handling a phone, limiting interruptions to the pace of play, which is important for etiquette during a billiards game.
Part C: CapSure’s environmental footprint is small but not zero, since it is adds a battery powered electronic device to a customer’s tech ecosystem which will eventually result in e-waste. The housing will also be a plastic filament which is not biodegradable and will end up in landfill. However, the low resolution and low frame rate capture keeps power draw minimal and extends battery health, and since we are not using cloud storage, there is no ongoing energy cost of remote data centers. Option of local battery disposal and recycling will reduce the impact even more, depending on the user’s region.
Part A was written by Clarence, Part B was written by Ankita, and Part C was written by Jayden.