The most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project are that if the parts we ordered are not able to complete the capabilities that we expect them to do. We did research into the parts that we have ordered already to ensure that they are compatible and have the basic capabilities, but you never know how well they will work until you actually begin to test them. Another point that could jeopardize the project would be if the IMUs are not precise enough. Since the basis of our project is that we need to balance cups of water precisely so that there is no spillage, we will need the IMUs to be able to provide accurate data so that we can smoothly adjust our platform to balance the cups of water. We will manage these risks by starting early and testing early. If we figure out that some parts that we planned on using are not good enough for our project, we will continue to do research and find the parts that can do what we need. We are confident that this robot is achievable within the budget since there are many examples of robots using IMUs to perform balancing tasks online, so it will just come to figuring out the correct implementation.
As we move from the proposal stage to the design stage. we are still designing our system, so there will be many changes throughout the next week, such as what kind of platform we will use and how we will prevent water from spilling and affecting the electronics. Generally, our requirements have remained the same, but as we continue to design our system, we will be zooming into the finer details and making changes there. The costs of the small detail changes should be within the total budget and are not expected to change the cost of the device or affect the requirements.