What are the most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project?
The most significant risk has been not being able to physically be together in Pittsburgh to work on the physical aspects of the project. Additionally, because of this unforeseen event, we have lost more time to redesigning and shifting our project. Moreover, because some of us our in different time zones, finding good meeting times for everyone is more difficult.
How are these risks being managed? What contingency plans are ready?
This is not a risk we really could’ve managed given the circumstances, but our suggested contingency plan is stated in the Statement of Work.
Were any changes made to the existing design of the system (requirements, block diagram, system spec, etc)?
A more detailed account of what we changed is listed in our SOW, but a brief description of the current goal of our project is “we believe that most of our original project can be maintained, since the crux of the project is software that will be loaded onto CubeRover’s modules. Since we can no longer simulate the protocols using physical components, we intend to simulate the protocols. Because the hardware aspect is no longer feasible, we plan on re-focusing our project to create, implement and test various error detection and correction algorithms to determine which methods best meet CubeRover’s specifications and hardware specifications.”
Why was this change necessary, what costs does the change incur, and how will these costs be mitigated going forward?
This change was necessary because of Covid-19 affecting the physical proximity of the teammates and recognizing the physical aspect of the project would only put physical strain on one teammate instead of the team.
Since we’ve already lost time redesigning our project, we realize that we need to immediately recognize whatever problems that may arise; because we’ve already lost so much time redesigning our project, we can’t afford to loose any more time running into issues or rethinking our current implementation decisions.
The biggest issues moving forward are not being together, making communication significantly harder amongst team members; additionally, some of us are in different time zones, making meetings harder to arrange. Thus, to mitigate these costs, we have set up weekly meeting times that work for all of us regardless. Additionally, we are clearly and frequently communicating to each other should any issues arise immediately.
Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred.
This is also the place to put some photos of your progress or to brag about a
component you got working.
