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 most significant risk that we are facing right now is being behind because we just changed our whole capstone project idea last week. We received lots of feedback from our proposal presentation, and we believed that it would be best if we changed our idea. Our previous idea contained a lot of moving parts that didn’t necessarily fit together, but we tried to force them together. In addition, we decided to switch because, as a whole, we are more passionate and interested in our new project idea. Lastly, the original idea had some fundamental issues regarding practically and cost that made it seem as a whole more infeasible.
Because this is a huge setback, we are working overtime in order to not fall too far behind. We started to order parts already and are in the process of finalizing our design review presentation.
Since we are changing our project so late in the semester, we have a contingency plan that involves creating a simple MVP project first, and then building on it when we have time. This allows us to create a product that meets our expectations while not overcomplicating it and bringing in too many factors. We would love for our project to be as complex as possible, but with the given time, we realize that it may not be feasible to add every single component that we want.
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?
Because we completely changed our project idea, we have created a new requirements for our the new design of our system. The first set of requirements is that we want our product to be light and portable (weight and size) while still retaining a level of robustness. These changes are necessary so the user can have the accessibility and agency to conduct music arrangement and composition anywhere they are. Additional requirements were regarding number of chords, volumes, and octaves the user could play on this piano. This was also necessary since the user needs to feel that this product can be worth-while to use rather than the effort used to find a real piano. These requirements provides the fundamental needs of the arranger and composer so that our product can stand on its own uniqueness (portable) and be differentiated from most pianos. Lastly, the requirements that target accuracy is beyond paramount for the user since they desire a reliable and accurate product for their needs. If our note and playback is inaccurate, then it won’t be sufficient for the user to enjoy using this over other pianos.
The costs that these changes incur take up our own time to edit and develop these changes to the design. Moving forward, additional costs to our time can be mitigated by finalizing our design after the design review this next week so there won’t be any confusion and fewer errors.
Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred.
Here is a link to our new GANTT chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Cjl4wdKSUFSZtF_5Mw1JuqtcA23wlrnsTV8MYDUDK88/edit?usp=sharing
Please enumerate one or more principles of engineering, science and mathematics that your team used to develop the design solution for your project.
We used the reliability principle of engineering to design how each of the components in our design, when integrated, would remain functional while also providing the user a strong sense of our product’s robustness and accessibility. We designed our product to be simple so that it would remain lightweight and portable for the user including dependencies on everyday devices (phones and laptops) so the user would not have to bring additional equipment with them to enjoy a level of satisfaction that comes with playing the piano anywhere they go.