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Kiera’s Status Report 3/15

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.

This week, I focused on completing the ethics assignment, reviewing our feedback on the design report, and budgeting/ordering our parts for the microphone. Additionally, while waiting for our parts to come in, I began writing the Arduino code to be synthesized onto our board when it arrives.

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

My progress is slightly behind schedule since we still haven’t received our components.  I will continue to work around this while  we wait for the parts to arrive this week.

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

In the next week I hope to have received my components and begin testing the microphone system.

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Team Status Report 3/8

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 at our current stage of the project is not being able to get the parts we need in time to build our project according to schedule. In order to mitigate this risk, we have allocated buffer time in our schedule and will use available components for prototyping while waiting for the specific parts we need.

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?

We haven’t made any major changes to the design on the system since our last status report.

Additional Questions

Part A (written by Aleks): JustPerform is designed with consideration for global factors as it is meant to be usable by those who are less technologically savvy. Our interface is simple to use and connects directly to the user’s Spotify library to eliminate the task of uploading files which some users may not understand how to do.

Part B (written by Hugo):  JustPerform is designed with consideration for cultural factors as we take the possibility of the user having a different accent into account in our vocal scoring algorithm. By scoring based on the similarity of the final audio signal of the user vocals + background music and the original track, we avoid the language/accent bias that may come with scoring based on lyrical accuracy.

Part C (written by Kiera): JustPerform is designed with consideration for environmental factors since we aim to minimize our power consumption as much as possible. One design choice we made in line with this goal is using a hardware filter to separate the lyrics from the backing track of the user’s songs rather than running a software filtering algorithm.

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Hugo’s Status Report 3/8

This week I was unable to achieve my primary goal of prototyping the hardware filter for our project. The design report took precedence over everything else, and although we did well on our design presentation, I found there was a significant amount of details missing for my implementation. First, I had written out a base schematic but I needed to make choices about not only the specific components but also how it will be powered. I also selected the specific cables we need to use in order to split the stereo left and right channels. I also was previously unaware of powered vs passive speakers and found that the original speaker was a passive one. This means we additionally had to add in an amplifier to boost the signal to our desired levels. I helped the team flesh out our physical requirements for some of the other systems as well. Overall I have fallen behind slightly and need to do some serious prototyping and catching up when we return.

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Kiera’s Status Report 3/8

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.

This week, my main focus was on completing the design report. The main sections that I worked on were our design tradeoffs, testing and verification metrics, and risk mitigation while filling in information relevant to our microphone system throughout the report.

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

My progress is behind schedule since I spent the week working on the report and do not have any deliverables. To catch up I will spend more time this coming week working on building the microphone.

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

By next week I hope to have a somewhat functional microphone prototype that is capable of capturing the user’s audio and motion data.