Bamlak Geteye

We initiated the project with our first meeting with our advisor and teammates. We discussed on how to proceed, the idea to work with and the mode of communication we would go forth with. Following this, we set our next meeting time. 

Post the meeting, we set out to brainstorm and come up with project ideas for our project.

According to the schedule set in the previous week, we had our second meeting to discuss on the ideas we come up with to finalize on a single idea. We went back and forth on this stage as we tried to sharpen our ideas to meet the goals and requirements we aimed at.  

We set off to prepare a proposal on the idea we chose. I organized the available resources, divide the proposal writing tasks to each member. We had some complications along the way, so set out to revise our title as well as our proposal. Against the odds, we did manage to submit the final proposal for the new title as well.

We submitted the proposal to our advisor. After his feedback, we revised our proposal and resubmitted a revised version. Through the writing and revision process, we set our progressive plan on the project according to our timetable of the semester.

We scanned the market for the necessary materials for our project. Following our Bill of Material and Procurement plan, the amount of cost was estimated and adjusted to fit our budget. 

As an electrical engineer, Natnael (my teammate) and I set our BoM according to the control system we developed to share the cost. 

The budget was released to each group. Using our BoM, we divided the budget and save some of it just in case of some extra costs. There were some unprecedented costs, but our estimate was more or less precise, and we managed to buy necessary materials.

We faced some challenges on meeting our requirement with the budget we have, and some components were not exactly in the value we preferred, but we did try to recalibrate our design as well.

We started building the prototype. Throughout the week we faced several problems. From my view, while implementing the designed electrical control system, unattended variables like our compensation of some components did cost us priceless time. But we absolutely did manage to work it out. 

Time goes by, and we reached our final stage. We went through the project and reached this stage. The prototype was completed, and we set out to focus on the presentation.