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?
Currently, on of the major risks still lies in mechanical integration of the braille cell and motor subsystems. We have begun designing the motor housing and accordingly adjusted the slider design as well after learning of new complications. We expect further minor bumps in the next week as we finalize printing and assembling the linear actuator to the motor. We plan to continue adapting to these potential physical issues.
As mentioned before, there was a slight modification in the motor location since we have decided to move the linear rack to the top of the slider due to concerns over extra load and jamming. There are very minimal extra costs involved in this modification.
The tests that we need to run as a team involve the integration and inter-functionality of the different subsystems. It also involves testing of physical design to fit all of our components. We need to validate that the translation program outputs the appropriate encodings, which need to be properly communicated over serial to our Arduino. We also need to measure any additional power consumption by the whole system, not just operating the motors from subsystem testing.