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Team’s Status Report for 02/21

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?

One of the most significant risks is that our 1st pcb design doesn’t work and subsequently our second design doesn’t work as well. While we have about $300 dollars to spend on pcb design and 3d printing it does make our team a bit nervous. Our contingency plan is to have our breadboard design ready and make changes to our hardware enclosure to ensure that the breadboard design would work.

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 currently don’t have any changes to the design yet, everything we fleshed out from the design review has stayed the same. Initial feedback from the design review seems to be that we should change a bit about how we present the product, but from a technical perspective nothing has changed.

The only change that we can think of is the pcb design, initially we had the esp32 on the top of the pcb, but due to clearance issues we have moved the esp32 to the bottom of the pcb to allow for smaller modules, mainly the IMU and GNSS to the top, in order to have clearance for buttons and the screen.

 

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.

This week we presented our design review, yay! Also we have divvied up the work for the design review report which is important as this upcoming week will be a busy one for all of us. We believe we are all on the same page which makes other work easier to finish and helps us identify problems with our design and timeline.

No changes to our schedule, but we have some work to show off.

Here is a part of our pcb design, we have also got a server up and running which is making and parsing API requests to the google routes api.

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Brandon’s Status Report for 02/07

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 got to work out the specific details of the implementation. There was a lot of unknowns when it came to the specific hardware and how it would interact with the algorithms and backend we were using. Having to understand what is needed for Pedestrian Dead Reckoning and what kind of hardware is needed to collect the right data showed me a lot about how I plan to integrate the IMU and GNSS modules. This also gave me a chance to start working on the PCB, as I now have pinouts for all of the modules, except for the screen. One of the kinks you have to work out when considering all of this is how to conserve battery an one of my issues will be implementing the usb c charger, this will be a major concern as it could take up lots of space if not implemented properly….

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

According to the schedule I have to prepare for the Design Review and finish the PCB for the device.

Right now I am on schedule, however it feels behind because this upcoming week with the design review I will have other commitments that will make me and other team members busy, focus will be essential. Therefore we are essentially late, but to make it work we need to communicate daily and follow up on commitments we made during our weekly Friday meeting.

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

Design Review slides, PCB Design, and ordering parts. We have established timelines, and the preparation ready, but need to get the work done.