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Team Status Report for 2/15/25

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 risks as of now are probably related to timing again, in terms of getting our components on time. We’ve generated a bill of materials earlier on to help us keep track of shipping costs/times/suppliers in an effort to mitigate this risk.

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 made several design adjustments to optimize cost and functionality. Additional components, such as voltage converters, were added to ensure stable power distribution across the system. Additionally, we reassessed the enclosure material, switching from acrylic to wood due to higher-than-expected costs for acrylic sheets. This change helps reduce expenses while maintaining durability. The cost impact of these modifications will be mitigated by optimizing our bill of materials, finding budget-friendly suppliers, and ensuring design efficiency to minimize excess material usage.

Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred. This is also the place to put some photos of your progress or to brag about a component you got working. 

A was written by Ashira, B was written by Anna and C was written by David.

Part A: … with respect to considerations of public health, safety or welfare. Note: The term ‘health’ refers to a state of well-being of people in both a physiological and psychological sense. ‘Safety’ is the absence of hazards and/or physical harm to persons. The term ‘welfare’ relates to the provision of the basic needs of people.

We’re hoping that our solution will contribute to improving the health and welfare of other people. Our vending machine was intended to function as a personal reward system that makes it easier for people to have structured and focused study sessions. In the current tech climate, mobile phones and social media fuel procrastination and reduce focus, often making it difficult to be productive, which can lead to distress. We’re hoping to contribute to a solution that accounts for this by incentivizing focus + providing more structure to dedicated work sessions, without any reliance on distracting external devices. While our device won’t completely monitor the user’s actions or strictly enforce productivity, we’re hoping that our device can help users reinforce study habits using a reward system that replaces the use of mobile devices & social media with a delayed form of gratification.

Part B: … with consideration of social factors. Social factors relate to extended social groups having distinctive cultural, social, political, and/or economic organizations. They have importance to how people relate to each other and organize around social interests.

Our design aims to be accessible to accommodate diverse user needs. The touchscreen interface will feature intuitive navigation, large buttons, and both visual and audio feedback for a seamless user experience. By optimizing material costs while maintaining usability, we ensure affordability without compromising functionality. Additionally, offering customizable product selections, such as gluten-free or dietary-specific options based on user’s preferences, allows the machine to cater to a broader audience, from university students to workplace environments. On that note, it would be helpful to promote choices on the healthier side in order to prevent overconsumption of unhealthy snacks long term.

Part C: … with consideration of economic factors. Economic factors are those relating to the system of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Our vending machine, based on the Pomodoro method, is unique economically by making studying a form of currency. Instead of requiring direct payment through credit card or cash, students earn snacks by focusing on their studies for a selected period of time. This system lowers barriers related to cost, allowing students (including those with limited budgets) to access food without spending money.

Additionally, the vending machine encourages efficient use of time, which can improve academic performance. By reducing the financial barriers of snack purchases and promoting productive habits, our project benefits students and contributes to a better environment within educational spaces.

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Anna’s Status Report for 2/15/25

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).

This week, I focused on researching the necessary components for our project, ensuring compatibility and reviewing documentation. A significant portion of my time was dedicated to refining our use-case requirements based on the feedback we received. This included tailoring the application to meet the updated requirements and establishing an initial quantitative baseline for our design specifications through research.

Additionally, I worked on finalizing the bill of materials by organizing components by supplier to optimize our budget. I also contributed to developing a more detailed block diagram of our project, ensuring better clarity in our system architecture.

On the technical side, I made progress with the GUI implementation using PyQt, setting up a virtual environment and GitHub repository. I was able to learn how to create widgets for the welcome and main screens, though they still require further refinement. Lastly, I submitted an inventory request and pickup for the Raspberry Pi to ensure we have the necessary hardware.

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

Due to adjustments in our project timeline, Week 6 was moved up to Week 5, which limited my ability to fully focus on my originally planned tasks from the Gantt chart. However, I was still able to start experimenting with window creation in PyQt and make initial progress on the GUI.

Since we began next week’s tasks early, I will focus on this week’s originally planned tasks next week to ensure I stay on track with our project schedule.

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

By next week, I aim to have a fully functional welcome screen and main screen setup in PyQt, with smoother navigation between them. I also plan to refine the GUI layout and begin integrating some input functionalities simulations as we have yet to get the touchscreen.

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Ashira’s Status Report for 2/8/25

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). 

This week, I helped with finishing up the project proposal + slides, as well and finalizing some of the features of our project. I spent some time splitting up the project into feasible tasks for our Gantt chart and making sure that our slides included all the details required. 

I also began compiling a series of links to resources /tutorials/previous projects that I thought would be helpful in referencing when implementing some of our features + interfacing our peripherals with the RPi, since we all have pretty limited experience with using the RPi environment. I also helped out with organizing our bill of materials and coming up with an outline of the components + quantities we’ll need to look into purchasing. 

I also worked on getting Solidworks updated and installed on my computer so that I’m able to get started with the CADing up the enclosure next week. I came up with a brief diagram that outlines the general spacing + locations of all the components we’re planning to use for the vending machine, although there are some specifics related to dimensions that might change/get added depending on how everything lines up in CAD. 

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 on task with the schedule on the Gantt chart we came up with. I’ve finished a rough diagram/plan of the parts that I’m hoping to start CADing up this week, although I’m still currently in the process of installing Solidworks on my computer, as of today. The installation process is taking a little longer than I expected, since I have an outdated version of Solidworks currently installed on my laptop that I have to backup and uninstall first. I hope to finish this process up later tonight, or by tomorrow (Sunday 2/9) latest. 

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

During this next week, I’m hoping to ideally finish CADing up all of the components needed for the vending machine structure in Solidworks. I’m hoping to get all the parts finished/assembled in CAD and use this as a first draft/pass, so that we can at least get an idea of the spacing constraints and amount of material we’ll want to use for the build. I’m also hoping to re-familiarize myself with using Solidworks beforehand, as well as the process needed to generate drawings and send them to the laser cutter, in an attempt to make the manufacturing and assembly process as smooth as possible.

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Team Status Report For 2/08/2025

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 think the most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project at this stage are purchasing the wrong materials. Purchasing materials always comes with some risk because we never know if we will accidentally purchase a component that is not compatible with our system. The way we try to mitigate this risk is by carefully doing research and reading the specifications about the material on the website that is advertising them along with any data sheets if they can be found. We’re planning on purchasing more components than we need, allocating part of the budget for emergency replacements, as well as purchasing alternative backup components, in case something goes wrong with our original components.

Another thing that could jeopardize the success of the project at this point is the timeline in terms of purchasing materials & the time it takes to receive them, getting over any learning curves, and integrating all of our respective subsystems together. 

More specifically, our Gantt chart initially suggested that we would wait to generate our BOM and submit purchase orders until all of our main RPI/peripheral circuitry was designed, but we realized that our UI + CAD implementations largely relied on the components we would decide to use for our features. We also realized that the lead time for each of the components we were looking to use differed largely, and taking into consideration the learning curve + time we estimate it would take for integration to occur, we decided it would be in our best interests to start purchasing things as soon as possible. Because of this, we’re hoping to finalize the implementation for our features + identify the components we need by the end of this week. We hope to have our BOM finalized by then and ideally send out our purchasing orders beginning next week. We are hoping to work on this together, in addition to our individual tasks this week, as outlined in the Gantt chart.

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? 

There weren’t really any changes that we made this week since we were working on creating the block diagram from scratch. 

Provide an updated schedule if changes have occurred. 

This is also the place to put some photos of your progress or to brag about a component you got working. 

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David’s Status Report For 2/8/2025

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). 

A large part of this week for me was spent working with my team on the project proposal slides for our presentation. To that end, I mainly helped with the foundation for the technical challenges part of the presentation and the solution approach block diagram, and my teammates edited what I wrote to make it better.

I also tried to compile a bill of materials. We are currently leaning towards using a Raspberry Pi and purchasing those peripherals that correspond to the Raspberry Pi, including the raspberry pi touch screen and speaker that can be used with Raspberry Pi. We haven’t completely decided what type of proximity sensor we wanted as we need some way of detecting a person versus other objects.

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

At the moment I believe my progress is on schedule with respect to the Gantt chart we created as a team. I am making progress with the Bill of Materials and also currently researching different ways to implement the timer, motor control, and interfacing with the touchscreen. 

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

Hopefully in the next week, I can make enough progress with understanding of motor control that I can come up with a schematic or diagram about how the Raspberry Pi will control the 6 motors. I believe online resources such as Raspberry Pi forums and their website will provide me with good enough information about the process. Also, I’ve seen YouTube videos of people controlling motors with Raspberry Pi so I will review those in detail.

 

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Anna’s Status Report for 2/8/25

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project?

This week, I researched problems that our idea could help solve, particularly the psychological aspects behind our design choices. This included exploring why we opted for a 1-on-1 interactive system, how a reward system can enhance studying, among others. Additionally, I helped organize and finalize our proposal slides, created the Gantt chart, and divided tasks for the next steps.

Beyond that, I drafted a GUI mockup for our touchscreen based on the state diagram I created. I also researched app development options for the Raspberry Pi, compiling setup tutorials and relevant resources into a reference document. As part of this, I downloaded PySimpleGUI, one of the available GUI development environments, though I have yet to determine if it is the best fit since we have not finalized our materials list.

Is your progress on schedule or behind?

According to the team’s Gantt chart, my progress is on schedule. However, I am still uncertain about which GUI framework to use. To resolve this, I plan to collaborate with the team to finalize our RPi and touchscreen selection before making a decision. Further research will also help solidify our approach.

What deliverables do you hope to complete next week?

Next week, I aim to finalize our choice of an app development framework and begin coding the interface. Additionally, I plan to set up a GitHub repository for version control and collaboration.