E80 Project Proposal Checkoff Checklist

Date: Section #: Team #: Professor:

Proposal:

• Has a justifiable scientific goal
• The specified sensors will help achieve that scientific goal
• Some sense of whether signals are big or small. Are the measurements feasible?
• List exceptional or difficult design features of their robot
• Have considered whether specific launch times are beneficial to them. Make requests for specific times if need be. (Don’t forget that human activity is much lower in the morning.)
• Robot will deploy autonomously for one minute
• Three new sensors with two unique electrical interfaces will be installed
• Have listed five alternative project ideas

Budget:

• Are not purchasing any parts that we have in lab (Students may buy replacement speakers or pH probes because they are not available for permanent installation.)
• Justify any high cost sensors: students are not buying things that we can easily make
• Checked that sensors are not SMT or that students have sensors on breakout boards
• Checked interface type for each sensor is compatible with Teensy
• Included taxes and shipping costs in the budget
• Total cost less than $50
• Verified team knows about engineering purchase order request form
• Verified the team has a designated buyer & knows not to buy until they’re 2x checked
• Have plans to generate fake sensor outputs next week if parts have not arrived

Mechanical Drawing:

• Mass calculated
• Center of gravity calculated (especially if they have a winch)
• Center of buoyancy calculated
• Ballasting calculations? (if applicable)
• Will it float? (Or not float if that’s the desired behavior)
• Low profile against wind? (unless designed for high wind drag)
• Low profile against currents? (unless designed for high current drag)
• Thrust calculations for unusual behaviors (e.g.: do you really generate enough thrust to bury yourself in the sand? To submerge? To hoist that winch?)
• Sensor placement good for measuring desired quantities
• Motors as far away from IMU as possible (to avoid magnetic field interference). Try for at least 30 cm.
• Plans for cabling if sensors are far away
• Planned out a suitable number of penetrators for waterproof box. Have picked locations.
• What is waterproof and what is not? Plans for waterproofing sensors out in the water.

Schematic:

• Bypass capacitors for every op-amp
• Voltage swings annotated on every node, including sensor outputs
• Designed gains lead to the voltage swings specified on the design
• Do the designed offsets prevent clipping?
• Inputs to Teensy bounded between 0 V and 3.3 V
• Signals buffered appropriately, especially as they enter the Teensy
• Are there enough input channels on the Teensy, do they plan to use the extra pins?
• Are there enough digital interfaces on the Teensy, are they on the right pins? (if needed)
• Considered software needed to interface with digital sensors? (Don’t forget that this includes encoders & Hall flow meters. Weather vanes often easier as potentiomenters.)
• Have they picked good H-bridges for any extra motors they plan to use?
• Considered how to measure any audio signals? Are they using an envelope detector + analog channel or are they designing their own sampler in software?
• Is battery power sufficient to peak current load?
• Calculated average current draw and maximum mission life? (It can be helpful for debugging to annotate current for each branch.)
• Considered how to generate signals for sensors that require them? (e.g.: AC signals for salinity sensor?)

Administrative/Overall:

• Prof advised team on expected difficulty of their proposed project, made sure they all bought in. Especially important if the team is trying to do lots of fancy stuff.
• Prof reminded team of the importance of experimental design and measured data in the final evaluation of the projects.
• Prof reminded team of checkoff schedule for next three weeks – breadboard, soldered and integrated, deployment at BFS
• Prof updated the instructor checkoff spreadsheet in the Project folder (this is important so that Prof. Brake can approve purchase orders)