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Team Status Report for Feb 18

What are the most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project? How are these risks being managed? What contingency plans are ready?

We anticipate that we may run into issues during the integration process, specifically in regards to the BLE communication between the software and hardware sides. At the moment we are managing this by ensuring we are using compatible libraries, hardware etc. to minimise potential challenges. On the hardware side, we may run into issues regarding PCB design, because none of our group members have PCB experiences, the PCB design process may take longer than our expectation. We manage this by starting the PCB design early. In particular, we already started the PCB file in fusion360 and should have a baseline circuit design by the design presentation to demonstrate our baseline circuit connection.

Were any changes made to the existing design of the system (requirements, block diagram, system spec, etc)? Why was this change necessary, what costs does the change incur, and how will these costs be mitigated going forward?

At this point in time we have not made any significantly large changes to our project. As we are still in the early stages of the design process, we have not yet run into significant bottlenecks that would require a re-evaluation of our proposed solution. We are currently conducting as much research as possible to construct holistic plans with a range of backup solutions. We hope that if we encounter issues during testing and development, this will allow us to make minor adaptations to our design without a large lapse in productivity. On the hardware side, we made more detailed circuit diagram and started the PCB file in fusion360. This change is necessary because we on in the process of refining the circuit design and plans to get PCB working as soon as possible.

Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred.

There are no updates to our schedule as of now.

Please enumerate one or more principles of engineering, science and mathematics that your team used to develop the the design solution for your project.

In the past week, we thought more about user experience and how that affects our design choices. Specifically, while it’s easier to connect a battery pack to the earrings, we still want to incorporate a battery socket in our PCB to maximize user comfort.

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Shize’s Status Report for Feb 18

This past week I started designing the PCB, read STM32WB55 reference manual, and prepared for the upcoming design presentation.

I started the PCB design using fusion360 on the ANSYS computers. I exported a PCB schematic of STM32WB55 from the internet and read the reference manual about how to drive the SPI peripheral. Because we haven’t get the screen to prototype the circuit, how the microcontroller is connected to the screen (such as which GPIO ports to use) is still contingent. I plan to use diagrams to demonstrate the circuit. For MVP, I reviewed the electrical behavior of diodes and plan to finish the circuit design by tomorrow.

The current progress is on schedule, I think I can get hardware development fully going once receiving the parts.

For next week, I’m delivering the design presentation for my group and I plan to start prototyping the circuit and make progress on both firmware and PCB design. For firmware, I target the goal of a successful programming of the screen using the SPI peripheral on nucleo board.

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Madi’s Status Report for Feb 18

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project?

This week I worked on completing the bulk of the preparation, research and planning required for the iOS app and UI. My goal was not only to provide a sufficient amount of documentation for the design presentation, but to also create a through set of clear and specific guidelines to optimise collaboration efficiency during app development.

Task 1 – Finalising the UI Design System

After conducting research on existing mobile interfaces and accessibility guidelines I finalised the team’s colour palette and typography choices. I then created a collaborative document for our team’s UI development on Figma and inputted the design system as a set of local styles.

Task 2 – Low Fidelity Wireframing

I then worked on drafting guidelines for all the potential screens, views and modals that would be required for our application. This involved determining all the components and widgets that the user would require to navigate our application. Additionally, I used guidelines from Apple’s developer documentation to determine the minimum size, padding, margin etc. constraints required for all components (i.e. sliders, buttons, cards) to be user-friendly.

As these wireframes are low fidelity and our first draft for the application, they only contain exact specifications for component/view size and layout (currently in “px” units and designed for iPhone 14, but will be implemented as a responsive design). We are planning to finalise the colour scheme and render components early next week.

Task 3 – Finalising Userflow

Utilising feedback from the proposal presentation, I updated our initial to increase the salience/readability of our  MVP goals. I also added the LF wireframes to the flow chart to provide an extensive overview of user actions. Labels and icons specifying user gestures such as “touch” and “vertical swipe” were integrated to demonstrate the user actions required to traverse different views.

Task 4 – iOS Research

To prepare for app development, I started taking notes on the documentation on the apple developer website. Specifically, I looked at the specific classes available for different UI Views and started mapping these back to the components specified in the wireframes. Additionally, I looked into recommended architectures for iOS design and discovered that Apple’s developer tools primarily support using  an MVVM (model, view, view-model) architecture, as opposed to the MVC architecture we had initially planned on using.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?

I am slightly behind at this point in time as I had planned on having the UML diagram completed by today. As swift seems to require an MVVM architecture, I have had to spend some time doing additional research to ensure I can accurately draft plans for our proposed models and views. As these plans are required for the design presentation, I will have to put in additional time to finish before the slides are due.

I was also hoping to have drafted some plans for the physical design, however I had to de-prioritise this task due to commitments outside of the class.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

Next Week, I plan to finalise the colour scheme and UI design with my teammates and start working on the front-end development of the application in swiftui.

Please list the particular ECE courses (if any) that covered the engineering science and mathematics principles your team used to develop your design ? If there are no courses please tells us how you learned those principles over the last week ?

As I have worked mostly on the software development part of our project, I have found 17-437 (Web Application Development) to provide the most relevant  information. However, whilst this gave me a good understanding of basic design principles and application development, I have some gaps in my knowledge in regards to app design. I have some experience from internships with Android development, but I have had to do additional research to learn iOS development. This has mostly involved looking at documentation on the apple developer site, watching tutorials on youtube and looking at existing projects on gitHub.

On the broader spectrum of our project, I believe knowledge from 18-349 (Embedded Systems), 18-220 (Analog Circuit Design) and 18-213 (Computer Systems) will be beneficial.

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Saniya’s Status Report for Feb 18

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or photos that demonstrate your progress. Prove to the reader that you put sufficient effort into the project over the course of the week (12+ hours). 

During this week, I began working on our design report and continued planning out the structure of our sysem. Since our W series STM32WB55s had not arrived yet, I did some practice with an STM32 board I had access to and set up a few simple peripherals: LEDs,  buttons (assuming we will need to incorporate at least one into our earring design. Since the device we are using is from Adafruit, it works with the CircuitPython library and is designed to be easily configurable with Arduino devices and other hobbyist microcontrollers. To connect with the DotStar matrix from an STM32 device, the most efficient way is to image the device with CircuitPython, which I tested with my personal STM32 to start getting a feel for the interface.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?  

According to the plan set out in our Gantt chart, I am currently on schedule.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

Since our parts have begun arriving, I plan to start getting our basic peripherals working with our STM32 and creating a preliminary interface and writing any baseline library functions necessary for communicating with the DotPixel LED matrix

Please list the particular ECE courses (if any) that covered the engineering science and mathematics principles your team used to develop your design? If there are no courses please tells us how you learned those principles over the last week ?

The course that I have found most relevant to the work I did this past week is probably 18349 Embedded Systems and 18240.  As I began working through the preliminary setup, I found myself applying my skills from 18349 to  properly understand the datasheets independently. Going forward, we will need to design our own PCB, which will also involve skills from 18349.

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Team Status Report for Feb 11

Our project considers the environmental, societal, and cultural values of our target consumer in the context of current economical and global trends.

Economic & Global Considerations

Breaking into the consumer electronics  market from a high fashion/ luxury standpoint not only capitalises on the increasing value ( Expected value of $USD 186.14 billion by 2030) of the wearable segment, but it also takes advantage of the movement in the fashion industry towards digitisation and virtual design [2].

The optimal target market demographic for this project is consumers of all demographics between the ages of 15 – 35, as they represent $350 million of spending power in the US as of 2020 [3]. Additionally, according to a 2023 forecast conducted by the business of fashion [4],  the younger generation prioritises spending money on fashion over traditional entertainment categories (e.g. dining, music media etc.)

Environmental, Societal and Cultural Considerations

We believe our product aptly considers the needs and values of our proposed user base.

The key differentiation factor of our product is that it enables users to purchase a single accessory that they can easily customise through an associated application. Unlike previous, generations younger consumers place a high value on fashion that reflects their values and self expression [3], with 82% of GenZ believing fashion is an important tool to establish identity [5]. We believe our product directly address this trend towards personalisation, by enabling users generate unique to articulate their individuality.

Moreover, we believe our product offers an environmentally sustainable option, by promoting reduced consumption. Adaptable fashion inherently has a larger number of use cases than traditional apparel. Cyber jewellery can be instantly adjusted for different events, trends or environments, reducing the need to buy multiple products for different situations. This is economically beneficial and reduces strain on the environment by limiting material, product and distribution wastes. Furthermore, emphasising the sustainability of our product appeals to the ethical values of our market. Specifically, younger consumers tend to spend more on sustainable products.

Sources:

  1. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/wearable-technology-market#:~:text=How%20big%20is%20the%20wearable,the%20wearable%20technology%20market%20growth%3F
  2. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/state-of-fashion
  3. \https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Retail/Our%20Insights/Renewed%20optimism%20for%20the%20fashion%20industry/The-state-of-fashion-2018-FINAL.ash
  4. https://www.businessoffashion.com/reports/news-analysis/the-state-of-fashion-2023-industry-report-bof-mckinsey/
  5. https://www.businessoffashion.com/reports/retail/gen-z-fashion-in-the-age-of-realism-bof-insights-social-media-report/

What are the most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project? How are these risks being managed? What contingency plans are ready?

The key issues we have identified that present the capacity to jeopardise our project center around two factors: user comfort and communication between our device and the application interface:

Size, Weight & Ergonomic Constraints

As our group is not addressing a particular existing need, but rather attempting to create product that offers a unique luxury experience for consumers, it is important for us to focus on delivering a comfortable and safe product to appeal to our end-user. Thus our largest design hurdle will be working around the small weight and size constraints.

To address this issue from a design standpoint we are looking at potentially adopting an ear cuff design to increase the available surface area we have to work with and to reduce strain on the ear lobe. Additionally, though we had originally considered casting our design in metal, we have researched alternative, more lightweight materials such as biopolymers and resins. Beyond research, throughout the design process we plan to periodically prototype, test (user trials, stress tests etc.) and refine our design to optimise user comfort. 

From a hardware perspective, we also believe that there will be a risk that the overall size of the PCB and battery will exceed our proposed constraints. We plan to  manage the PCB size risk by thinking about the PCB design as early as possible. We need to identify the additional circuit components besides the microcontroller and think about how we can use as least components as possible. Additionally, if the battery we need to use to fulfill the battery life requirement exceeds the required size, we plan to prioritize the size requirement and consider shortening the required battery life.

BLE Communication

Additionally, we anticipate that achieving reliable and fast communication between our application and peripherals will be a major obstacle across the course of our project.  We have planned to use BLE due to its high data transfer rate and high compatibility with smartphones, however there is a potential to have issues getting the BLE to work with a python script.

The BLE risk is managed through developing firmware on the nucleo boards. Nucleo boards are easier to work with than customized PCB. Making the peripheral driver work first on nucleo is an effective way to manage the BLE risk. Additionally, we found a GitHub repo that demonstrates the BLE functionality on STM32WB: https://github.com/vladimir-vakhter/stm32wb55_ble_p2p/blob/main/STM32_WPAN/App/app_ble.c. Consulting the code in this repo when get stuck is also a strategy on managing the BLE risk. Since STM32 firmware is generally finicky, a contingency plan is using another microcontroller that has BLE functionality such as ESP320.

Were any changes made to the existing design of the system (requirements, block diagram, system spec, etc)? Why was this change necessary, what costs does the change incur, and how will these costs be mitigated going forward? ” Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred:

At this point in time, we have not made any significant updates or changes to the design or schedule presented in our proposal. As our project is highly dependent on physical design constraints, we are currently waiting to receive our parts and conduct initial testing before we present a fully fleshed out design.  We aim to finalise our development plans and preliminary designs across hardware, software and industrial design this week to ensure we are fully prepared and streamlined for when our parts arrive

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Shize’s status report for Feb 11

This week, I contributed to the slides for our proposal presentation. I contributed mostly to the technical challenges and solution approach: hardware sections. By finishing these slides, I identified 5 technical challenges and proposed a hardware solution to our project that can potentially address the technical challenges. I did research on different microcontrollers we can use for our project and pinpointed the STM32W series as the processor we will use. I also suggested ordering two nucleo boards for firmware development, one for each of the team members who are responsible for hardware development.

The progress is on schedule.

In the next week, I hope to get the nucleo board and setup the toolchain. I will also start on getting the BLE working with a python script. My goal for the next week are getting the toolchain up and running and getting myself familiarize with the BLE peripheral on STM32WB55.

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Madi’s Status Report for Feb 11

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or photos that demonstrate your progress. Prove to the reader that you put sufficient effort into the project over the course of the week (12+ hours). 

The primary objective for me this week was to conduct research and work on the initial stages of planning our project. 

During the front end of the week, I focused on assisting with scheduling and task division, user/market research and developing the physical design and iOS application use case requirements for the proposal presentation. I communicated with my team members to develop a list of tasks and rough scheduling timeline to create a Gantt Chart. I attempted to segment our project as much as possible into smaller, achievable goals.

To accurately understand the design requirements for the outer casing/physical component of our project, I started by surveying the market of existing products. This involved gathering data from e-commerce sites associated with the consumer habits of our proposed market regarding earring size, material, type and backings. Information was compiled into a spreadsheet to enable us to develop realistic design constraints. Additionally, I conducted further research into safety guidelines for skin safe wearable materials, thermal ranges for parts in contact with skin, jewellery weight limits and design factors that can lead to dangerous conditions for consumers (i.e. ear infections, scarring , tearing etc). 

I also worked on developing the solutions approach for the iOS application. I looked at several different development avenues, including developing a cross platform application using React, or working with a combination of Apple’s UIKit. Due to our limited time and scope for this project, ultimately SwiftUI was chosen due to its higher compatibility for iOS 16 and better support for user interface development. I also looked into the APIS & libraries we could potentially use to interface with our wearable (CoreBlueTooth & CoreData). After determining an appropriate solutions approach, to gain a.  I looked over documentation and tutorials on the apple developer website as well as some existing projects for BLE communication on GitHub.

After the presentation, whilst our group waits for hardware parts I took the opportunity to start planning the user interface for our application. This has involved analysing existing mobile applications for smart home devices and lights, wearables and other bluetooth devices. This enabled me to gain a better understanding of the layouts, user flows and components that will provide an optimal user experience. Additionally I started working on a design system in figma (colour scheme, typography, component design and graphic elements). I also created a preliminary user flow diagram and started working on low fidelity wireframes. 

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule? 

According to the Gantt chart I am currently on schedule. 

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

By the end of next week I hope to have all planning for the software completely done and to have possibly started working on some of the front end. I also hope to work with my other group members to have finalised a few options for the physical design of our earring.

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Saniya’s Status Report for Feb 11

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or photos that demonstrate your progress. Prove to the reader that you put sufficient effort into the project over the course of the week (12+ hours). 

During this week, I focused my time on two objectives: preparing the proposal presentation and handling the parts for our project. After submitting the presentation material last Sunday, I prepared during the week leading up to the presentation on Wednesday. To prepare, I familiarized myself with all the concerns relating to the execution of our project and researched our implementation strategies to better be able to answer any questions that were asked of me.

After the presentation, I was able to submit our parts for order and I began going through the datasheets for each of the major components (primarily the microcontroller and the two screens: the LED matrix and the LCD).  I also began familiarizing myself with the frameworks for connectivity protocols in iOS and researching other projects using the Swift Core Bluetooth (BLE) framework. Additionally, while waiting for the parts to arrive, I began researching manufacturing options for the physical casing of the earring and the electrical components. I’ve looked into SLA printing for some of the internal structure compoments, since the material options for SLA printing are far less heavy and heat conductive, and metal 3D printing (ideally 316L stainless surgical-grade steel) manufacturing companies. Finally, I read up on the specific capabilities of DotStar LEDs. We were intially thinking to build our MVP with a NeoPixel LED matrix component, but after some searching, we found the form factor of the DotStar LED matrix we selected better suited our interests. Dotstars have much faster data rates than NeoPixels, which expands our pattern options to involve movement.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?  

According to the plan set out in our Gantt chart, I am currently on schedule.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

In the next week, I hope to begin developing preliminary hardware designs (block diagrams, drawings preceding CAD for the earring casing) while waiting on the parts to arrive.  Once the parts arrive, I intend to start building test circuits immediately and learning to invoke basic functionalities in isolated testing.