[MUSIC] In this lecture, we're going to talk about the Capstone Design project. Give you parameters, what you expect out of the Capstone Design. How hard it's supposed to be and that sort of thing and what the elements are that enter in a generic capstone design project. So the capstone design project, the goal of this is for you to design and maybe build a more complex system, so by more complex, I mean more complex than we've done in previous assignments. And I say design and maybe build, so you're definitely going to design it. Building it is optional depending if you have the money because if you build something, you'll probably need money to actually buy the components for the design, and so if you don't have that money, then you don't have to actually build it, but at least you have to design it and show you design steps. So the idea is that you're going to combine several basic elements that's we've learned. Now, you can actually do other things that we have not learned. That's fine too, on an exam that'll take you a little bit more time but if you're interested in doing that that's fine. But you got to combine multiple elements. So for instance, we've read sensor inputs from photo resistors and things like this, about push buttons, that sort of things. So we learn that. We learned how to control motors, things like this. So these are different elements that we've learned through a class and you going to put together some of these. The music camera or every file, that sort of thing, you put these together. So in this project you are going to design your own project. So everybody gets to do what they want to do, within certain limits do what they want to do. So you have to make it up. And so, that's what we're going to talk about right now. What are the parameters on you for when you make up your project? Now, what you're going to submit for the grade is the design process. So you're going to record your design process. Recording it by basically there are certain assignments that are right up to the peer assessments or write-ups that you have to submit that document your design process at different stages, then you submit that and get it graded. Also if you do take the optional assignment, you go in and implement this design, then you're going to turn in a video of your design working and that will be graded as well. So all projects need to include network communication of some sort. This is the Internet of things class so there's gotta be some networking. Now, note that the networking doesn't necessarily have to be Internet, it could just be point to point communication between devices, that's okay. But as long as there is some aspect, some networking involved in the design, that's necessary. So deciding on a project idea. So how do you pick your idea? [COUGH] And it's up to you, but give you a few parameters. One thing is it should not be too easy. So the complexity needs to be significant. So what does that mean? It needs to combined multiple things that you have learned, not just one thing and you slightly tweak it. You gotta combine two or three different elements together and maybe something that you didn't learn if you want to, combined in there to make something that's more complex. Now, it shouldn't be too hard either. So by not too hard I mean. Ultimately it needs to be done in four weeks. So you gotta make it hard enough to be interesting, but not too hard that you can't do it in the time required. Now, note that when you're reasoning about the complexity of a design idea, you're trying to think, what design should I do? The complexity is more than the sum of the parts, so say you've got three different elements in your design. Reading a photo sensor, doing this, doing that. Each one of them might be easy, but when you put them together into a whole system the integration of it adds complexity. So consider that when you're thinking about the complexity of your design. So as an example, say you're reading a photo sensor, that's easy. We've done that in class. Driving a servo motor, that's easy. We've also done that in class. But say you want to put that together to make something that takes a water gun or something and points it at a light source. So what you'd want to do is find a light source. So one way to do this might be to take a photo sensor, put a mount it on something, scan in every direction. See where it's brightest. Record the brightness. See where it's brightest, and then you assume that's where the light source is. And then, you just point the water gun in that direction. Whatever angle you saw was brightest. Now, that basically takes those two elements, reading a photo sensor also driving a servo motor to change the direction of the water gun and the photo resistor and all that. So it takes those two basic elements and puts them together. But the project itself is a lot more complicated than just those two elements separately. Because there's things like mounting the water gun onto the servo and then how many axis, maybe one, two axis in motion so you need two servos, and you have to mount it correctly. Stuff like this. So there's added complexity. So the complexity of the design isn't just the sum of the complexity of the individual components. But there's also this complexity just due to the integration of different components that you have to consider when you're thinking about how hard design is to implement. Now, another thing that is common in Capstone Designs is to have some sort of a physical component, one or more physical components inside the design, mechanical, physical components. So many ideas involved that take a robot, your physical things are moving. Quadcopters, you have to build the frame, propellers are moving, so fourth. A fish feeder, whatever, there are lots of different project that involve physical things moving and fifth frameworks and things like that that you're building onto. So just be careful about these types of projects, about mechanical components because remember, this isn't a mechanical engineering class, we haven't really learned about that stuff, so it can be more difficult than you think. So maybe you need equipment that you don't have access to or you don't know how to use. So for instance, maybe you need to build a device on top of some kind of a framework and you need some board or some surface that you can mount everything to. And it needs holes in it with certain spacing. So you need a drill press, let's say. And if you don't have access to a drill press then you're out of luck, or if you don't know how to use a drill press then you're out of luck. Now, you can try using a hand drill, but it might not be as easy to do that. You can't get a precise and so forth. Maybe you're drilling into metal. Things get harder. So be wary of these things that we haven't studied. And not that you can't do it at all but just remember that that adds significant complexity because we really haven't covered it, and remember that especially with mechanical devices you get these other effects that mechanical engineers learn that we did not, so for instance vibration. I say this because of the quadcopter stuff that I do. Vibration messes up the stability of the system. So if you get a frame that's too weak made out of the wrong material, it'll vibrate and then it'll make the whole system unstable. And that type of thing if you haven't learned about that, you might not be able to predict that. You might think, I'll just build this out of thin wood and bam, bam, bam. And then when you do it, you realize my goodness, this is failing and I can't understand why. So it can make your system a lot more complex if you have these issues and you don't know how to deal with them. Now, on the other hand, don't be too frightened by mechanical components. I would recommend buying prefabricated components. So there are many different types of devices where prefabricated components exist, like say you're making robots. They're many companies online you can buy framework for robots, generic boards where you can just screw components in at different spacings. There are lots of different things available that you could just buy and just easily screw them together and make something. So you don't have to worry about all those issues. So if you can find prefabricated components for whatever you're doing, great. If you can't, then building it on your own, only do that if you know how to do that. Thank you. [MUSIC]
