ESC472H1 Final Reflection

The engineering design process I outlined at the beginning of this term was from Teach Engineering [1] and followed the following five steps: Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, and Improve. This is illustrated in Figure 1, where it is a continuous loop that is iterated on constantly throughout the life of a design project. During the development of our design project, this is the main design process I attempted to follow. I found however that this is a very simplistic model of my design process and that it in fact contains more steps that cant be encompassed by these five words. One big part of the design process that I view now is the development, testing, and validation of assumptions. Often one cannot begin to do work without making assumptions and sometimes these assumptions take time to be validated. However, the validation of assumptions can occur in parallel with other work, especially in design projects involving multiple team members. Figure 1: Teach Engineering's Engineering Design Process Thus, some members must make those assumptions and develop work that may be used in the final product or not depending on the outcome of the testing and validation of those assumptions. For example, in our project an underlying assumption made was that the receiving antennas signal quality was proportional to the power in the signal, which could be rectified into a DC value. Another assumption made was that this power would be highest at an optimal direction and decrease significantly in either direction of this optimal orientation. While these expectations had not yet been validated, the control system had to be developed. Therefore, the expectations were assumed in order to begin designing the control system in parallel with the validation of these expectations. The assumptions were validated by the circuit design, simulations, and full testing. Therefore, time was saved by making assumptions and developing the controller in parallel. Another part of the process that I believe is not reflected in my initial model is in fact what I am doing right now: reflecting. In doing reflections more often on your own design process, you are able to correct errors and immediately improve. This however must be done in a timely and structured fashion so as to not waste time. Scheduled reflections throughout a design project can have huge beneficial effects on the outcome of a project. Some questions that should be asked in these reflections are: -What is my goal from now until my next reflection? -Have I met my goals developed in the last reflection? If not, what obstacles have prevented success? -What assumptions have been made from the beginning of the project? Have any of these assumptions been validated? -What requirements am I meeting by performing this work? -If I can perform this task in more ways than one, which way will have the best performance? Which way will take more time? Is the time taken for better performance more beneficial to the design project?

-Does the work of my team members rely on the outcome of my work? If so, how will I ensure that my work will be complete in time so as to not encumber their process? The purpose of these reflections is to take a step back from the specific work being done and assess the importance of it to the overall design project. The reflection should be results-oriented of the entire design project rather than of smaller components being worked on towards the ultimate goal. I believe the model does not effectively convey the importance of time. Every design decision revolves around time due to milestones and deadlines. Furthermore, the decisions made will ultimately require some estimated time to completion, which includes an engineers work hours as well as lead times for parts. This can have huge effects on design decisions made, especially if results of one component of a project will have an immediate effect on another part of the project. For example, when we were building the prototype we came to have to decide on the motor to be used to rotate the antenna. We required immediate results and the fastest way to get these results was to go to a local store and buy a handful of motors to be tested. Only one of these motors could effectively rotate the antenna and so the performance was below optimal. However, if some time had been allotted to more effectively research motors and specifications required, a motor could have been ordered online. This would have taken perhaps a week or two to arrive, however the motor would have been chosen to our required specifications and would have ideal performance. As a result, this was a design decision focused largely on time which sacrificed the overall performance of the system. As a result of these reflections and of my work throughout the term, I have developed a new model, which is similar to the one mentioned at the beginning of term though it has additional loops and components. It is visually represented here in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Improved Engineering Design Process Model

LESSONS LEARNED In this design capstone course, many lessons were learned. Most of these lessons were in how to properly and effectively work in a team, assign responsibilities and work, efficiently communicate, and achieve results together while follow milestones set by the group. The team met every week with Professor Foster, which led us to constantly require improvements. This was good motivation for everyone to get the work done that was required. In addition, since there were two main subsystems (circuits and controller), this ensured that both subsystems were progressing and would be ready to integrate together approximately around the same time. The capstone course has a focus on the entrepreneurial side of the development of a product, which for me was a fantastic opportunity to learn. I gained a lot more insight on the development of a business model for a product and the feedback from Orbis and the judges at the pitch was critical and insightful. If anything I learned the most about the entrepreneurial aspect of our product in the 5 minute question and answer period of the pitch. They challenged our model in with some ideas we had not thought of and this was a good lesson learned for the future to work out all the details, even for an estimation of a business model. Another useful exercise coming from this entrepreneurial aspect was in thinking about stakeholders of the product. Often in engineering science there is so much focus on theory that you dont think about outside influences that may affect a product. Some external factors were very important to consider such as electrical and safety regulations, installation services, manufacturers, and electronics recyclers. These are especially important in considering various business models for a product. Personally, I was able to gain exposure to the implementation of a control system with a microcontroller. I had not worked with an Arduino in the past, so it was a beneficial experience to get to use one and interface it with motors and switches for inputs. This experience will assist me in the future if I am faced with a control problem for which we need to use a microcontroller. Initial prototyping stages are well-suited for use with a less expensive microcontroller like an Arduino instead of an FPGA. I also had the experience of designing a control system for an input source that was unknown. The optimal voltage level was never known and so there was no reference signal to track. Feedback control is usually based off some reference signal but in this case, the only reference to compare to was past voltage readings. Thus, the controller used sequential readings to test if the voltage level had increased or decreased and decided on the direction of motion based off these findings. The lessons learned during this capstone design course will be extremely valuable in my future, whether it be in graduate studies or in the work industry. I have improved my abilities to work effectively in a small team while maintain efficient communication. Further, I have improved my abilities to work independently by being assigned the task of designing the controller subsystem for the group. I plan on starting my own company in the future and the entrepreneurial edge of this course has greatly improved my understanding of the development of a business model and all of the details that must be thought of in order to bring a product to market. REFERENCES Teach Engineering. The Engineering Design Process. Internet: http://www.teachengineering.org/engrdesignprocess.php, [Jan. 13, 2012]