Weekly Progress Reports (see sidebar), the Gantt chart, and this Project Management page should be printed out before meetings with the sponsor and instructor.
All team members should be able to explain all items on the progress report.
Place a "*" at the beginning of the title of the active week Progress Report (see * in sidebar).
Overview of Project Context
Describe the context of how the MAE156 project fits into the sponsor’s overall research or industry objectives.
The objective of our sponsored project is to produce a low-cost spar buoy integrated with electronic system for near coast ocean monitoring. Ocean monitoring vehicles are widely used in scientific research and military application, but the existing vehicles cost highly and therefore extensive use is not possible. Our project aims to provide a cheap solution for ocean monitoring vehicle so that ocean monitoring can be carried out more extensively and cheaply.
Project Objectives
- High Priority Objectives
1. Design a spar buoy for ocean monitoring purpose capable to operate underwater at depth of at least 100 ft. The prototype built is expected to be working in lab condition
2. Integrate electronics into the ocean monitoring vessel to store and transmit data back to the surface. Particularly, a Galaxy Nexus Android phone and IOIO board will be used.
3. Reduce the cost and achieve durability
- Second Priority Objectives
1. Extend the working depth to 200-300 feet
2. The prototype type built will be able to work in real sea water
- Other Constraints and Issues
1. An environment that is able to produce high pressure surrounding to simulate undersea environment when testing the prototype
2. Budget: The Galaxy Nexus Phone itself costs a large portion of the available budget
- WOW Design Solution
Ask what would their dream design solution would be like. You may not achieve this, but it is good to know what it would be like.
A spar buoy ocean monitoring vessel capable to work 200-300ft undersea that is small, cheap, and durable. The spar buoy will be working in real sea water around the coast, and the data collected from the sensor can be communicating through the cellphone on board of the spar buoy.
Risk Reduction Objectives
The design team together with their sponsor should identify the first tasks of the project, to be completed during the last 3 weeks of the 156A quarter. These beginning tasks are meant to address high risks aspects of the project early on. Possible risk reduction tests could be a preliminary hardware test, analytical modeling, or software simulation. Ideally each team will identify some hardware and some analytical objectives for the risk reduction phase. The results of the risk reduction tests will be presented in the MAE156A final period.
Risk Reduction:
For the floatation mechanism, determine whether placing the pump and valve inside the reservoir or separate from the reservoir will be a better design for the spar buoy.
The main purpose of the risk reduction is to check whether sacrificing reservoir capacity for simplicity of design with the aforementioned components placed together is desirable or not.
The risk reduction will be done by building a prototype of spar buoy with the valves, pump, and bladder supplied by our sponsor and PVC pipe and end caps purchased by the team for evaluating the pros and cons of both designs.
Intermediate Milestones
Identifying meaningful intermediate milestones is a critical for effective project management. Together with your sponsor identify such milestones, and specify specific performance requirements you aim to meet at each milestone. As the project progresses, these milestones will likely become more specific and their description should be updated.
- Construct a spar buoy out of PVC pipe that can withstand desired undersea pressure
- Create a variable ballast system consisted of valve, pump, and bladder
- Integrate electronic into the spar buoy
- Test the prototype in laboratory setting
Individual Component Analysis Topics
The individual component analysis is part of the risk reduction effort. Each student will select a component of the project to investigate. Common topics are evaluation of a component that the team would likely have to purchase during the project. Other components may be evaluations of different software or analytical methods to use. List component topics below:
- Choice of Pump, Valve, and bladder
- Choice of PVC pipe and end caps
- Implementation of Sensor
- Programming on IOIO board and Android Phone