SER300
Mechatronic Design
Assignment Information
Trimester 1, 2020
Table of Contents
Assignment Information 1
Project Specification 2
Introduction 2
Task Definition 2
Design Brief (15%) 5
Introduction 5
Report Structure 5
Report Content 5
Introduction 6
Literature Review 6
Problem Analysis 6
Proposed Mechanical Solution 6
Proposed Electrical Design 7
Proposed Software Design 7
Compliance to Standards 7
Expert Topic 8
Reference List 8
Software Flow Chart 8
PCB and Schematics 8
Gantt Chart 8
Journal of Progress 8
Data Sheets 9
Submission 9
Progress Presentation (10%) 10
Introduction 10
Content 10
Assessment 10
Showcase (50%) 11
Final Report (25%) 12
Introduction 12
Report Structure 12
Report Content 12
Introduction 13
Final Mechanical Solution 13
Final Electrical Design 13
Software Design 13
Compliance to Standards 13
Demonstration Performance 14
Future Commercial Design 14
Expert Topic 14
Reference List 14
Software Flow Chart 14
PCB and Schematics 14
Gantt Chart 14
Journal of Progress 15
BOM and costing for a single unit 15
BOM and costing for 10,000 units 15
Data Sheets 15
Submission 15
Assignment Information
Students should carefully review all the listed requirements for all the assignments at the start of trimester to make sure they have access to all the required information and other resources at the correct time. It is the student’s responsibility to manage all their work, family, study, travel, holiday and other commitments to meet the published assignment due dates. Any academic, administrative or other encumbrances that result in the loss of access to Cloud Deakin, email and other network resources are the responsibility of students.
Please include a title/cover page with your assignment that clearly identifies the unit, the assignment title, the author’s name, and the lecturer for whom the assignment is intended. Where a word/page limit for written work is stated, it excludes title pages, tables of contents, lists of references, appendixes, etc.
Reports submitted should be of a professional standard. Spelling and grammar are an important part of the presentation of your written assignments. It is a good idea to prepare your assignments allowing enough time for them to be reviewed by an independent reader — either a friend, family member or colleague—for feedback on the general style, spelling and grammar.
In all assignments it is essential that you acknowledge all of the sources of information used in preparing your assignments. You should do this by using an accepted system of referencing that:
1. Cites reference material in the body of your assignment
2. Include a list of references at the end of your assignment
For simplicity, the required system of referencing in this unit is the IEEE referencing system. Any sources that you get from the internet need to be referenced (data sheets, tutorials, etc), and you must include the URL and the time and date that you accessed the information. It is recommended that you use a program to help you keep your references documented and correctly inputted into your assignments. EndNote is a good software to use if you write your reports in Microsoft Word, and can be downloaded from the Deakin Software Centre.
The internet and other online resources mean that a large amount of information is available to students in electronic form. You are encouraged to use online resources in your investigations, but it is not acceptable to simply reproduce material from electronic resources, doing this is plagiarism. You must treat online sources the same as any other source of information, and use it to inform your own analysis, thought and work.
You should also keep in mind that, although there is much reputable information published on the Internet, there is no guarantee that information sourced from Web pages has been through same review and refereeing process as that found in textbooks and journals. It is expected that your list of references for any assignment submitted in this unit would not consist solely of information sourced from the Web. It is acceptable to include some Web references, but these should be used in support of primary information sourced from journals, textbooks and other refereed sources.
A well-presented assignment that addresses all the stated assignment requirements will earn high marks. Additional marks will be awarded for apparent and outstanding research, analysis and presentation. While the topics you present in your assignments are important, so is the fact that you can demonstrate thoughtful analysis and the ability to communicate effectively in written and oral form.
Assignment submissions that do not conform to the stated requirements will be assessed last, and, may be returned un-marked.
Project Specification
Introduction
All assessment for this unit is based upon a single project. The project this year is the design and building of a small autonomous vehicle as specified in the task definition below. This unit has no end-of-trimester examination or any written tests.
The aims of the project are that the student should:
• Become experienced in dividing a complex design problem into a set of subsystems and then integrating the separate solutions into a final design.
• Understand how the various disciplines of their undergraduate course can be combined in a single system design.
• Comprehend the time, cost and availability constraints that must be faced in engineering practice.
• Solve open-ended problems in the basic areas of mechatronics.
• Achieve competence in expressing design concepts in formal reports.
• Design and make a device capable of fulfilling the given task definition.
Task Definition
The colonization of space is a rough business. There’s money and land and resources and prospectors want them all. It’s the wild west of outer space! The planet of Calidi is a major mining planet that supplies many valuable resources for the electronics industry throughout the universe. There are many competing companies on Calidi, each trying to collect the most amount of ore. Calidi is right in the middle of a binary star system, with most of the valuable resources being located on the surface of the planet as they are ejected from the passing stars. Due to the planet’s close proximity to the stars, even with the most advanced technology a vehicle cannot stay above ground for more the 2 minutes or it will cease to function. Due to the strict regulations on Calidi, each company cannot have more than one vehicle on the surface of the planet at a time.
You have recently joined a new start up and are competing for a contract to develop the next generation of robots for a major mining company operating on Calidi. You are to develop a prototype robot that demonstrates some key requirements that a final system must be able to do. The list of requirements for the robot are:
• The robot can be no more than 200mm x 200mm x 200mm (length x width x height). This will be tested by placing the robot into a box
• Due to how the robot will be deployed, it must start any task in the same orientation that it is placed in the box. The robot must be able to sit in the starting position indefinitely. The robot may change dimensions after it has been deployed (arms extend, robot falls down, etc)
• The robot cannot be any more than 1kg. A lighter robot will be preferred over a heavier one
• The robot must be completely autonomous. Due to atmospheric conditions on the planet, there can be no contact to the outside world so all sensing and computations need to be done local to the robot
• The robot must be purpose built. No off the shelf solutions are allowed.
• The robot must have the least amount of wires as possible. Only battery, motor and encoder wires are allowed. Everything else needs to be directly connected to a PCB. It is recommended that you use appropriate connectors for daughter boards instead of soldering them directly to the PCB. If you think you require more wire, eg a sensor needs to be placed at the end of an arm, you must get written permission from the teaching team and present this during your examination. (TIP: the base of the robot and/or PCB does not need to be the maximum dimensions of the robot)
• The robot must have some status indicators that are clearly visible from outside the robot to indicate when it is in different stages of the program. This could be anything from a simple flashing LED to a screen
• The robot cannot exit the bounds of the playing arena
• The robot MUST have an appropriately sized fuse before ANY other electronic component (even a switch). If there is not a fuse on the robot, the robot CANNOT be switched on, even for a “quick test”. The only exception to this is if the power source you are using for testing the robot already has an appropriate fuse and/or is a current controlled device (eg most lab power supplies)
• The robot must be constructed so that it can be take an appropriate amount of damage, and be repaired easily. If it collides with another robot, the edge of the arena or the ground and breaks, that is considered bad design. The only exception to this is if another robot intentionally damages your robot, which is NOT allowed and the offending robot will be disqualified
• The total cost of the robot may NOT exceed $300 AUD. This includes EVERYTHING in the robot, from the smallest screw to the most complex sensor. The microcontroller must be included in this cost as well as any batteries that are in the robot. Additional batteries (spares) are not included in the cost. Shipping of components does not count, it is encouraged that you find the lowest price for components possible. You may buy components from any source, however the price that counts towards the robot must be listed from a highly reputable source. While you can buy many things cheaply from sites such as Ebay and Bangood, the price that is included for the robot will be that as if it was brought from a store (Adafruit, Sparkfun, Digikey, Mouser, Element 14, RS Components, etc). In other words your supply chain must be traceable.
• Your PCB must contain more than just tracks. It must also contain components other than connectors. All resistors and capacitors must be SMD components, and the PCB must be designed using Altium. A fully completed and populated Altium project package must be submitted with the initial and final reports
The assessment for the robot will be broken up into four different sections:
• The robot must first pass scrutiny. This will involve questions and answers that you must answer. It will also need to pass a safety inspection, and an inspection for conformance to the rules. For example, does the robot have a fuse, is it under weight, within size, contain a PCB and any other matters defined by the teaching team. A robot may not present for any other task until it has passed scrutiny. This is for safety and fairness of the competition.
• The robot must pass task 1. This involves the robot traveling to all four collection areas on the arena, and then stopping in the middle of the arena. The robot has one minute to complete this task. More marks will be awarded for completing this task quickly.
• The robot must pass task 2. This involves the robot collecting one resource, located somewhere around the middle of the arena, and depositing it in your designated collection area. The robot has one minute to complete this task. More marks will be awarded for completing this task quickly.
• If the robot passes scrutiny and the two tasks, it is eligible for the competition. This will involve the robot finding and collecting ‘resources’ from the centre of the arena. But you will not be alone! There will be up to four robots competing in the arena at the same time. Each round will run for two minutes. The robot that has the most resources in the collection zone at the end of the time limit will be declared the winner. Any resource that is still attached to the robot will not be counted, unless the robot is entirely in the collection zone. The robot may steal resources from an opponent’s collection zone at any time during a round. Robots may not attack an opponent, though they may defend their collection zone (eg blocking their opponents from entering the zone). If the robot is deemed to be attacking another player on purpose, they will be disqualified. Your robot must be within your own collection zone when the bell sounds.
More information such as detailed rules and a description of the arena will be uploaded to the unit site. If you have any questions about the competition or the assessments, please contact the unit team.

Design Brief (15%)
Due Date as per Unit Guide
Introduction
This assessment task requires the creation of a report that details the current state of the robot’s design. It should include where the design currently is mechanically, electrically and the state of the software as well as how each component is integrated into the system.
The design brief is intended as a mechanism for students to consider their proposed design, and to gain feedback from the teaching staff as to their approach. Please see the required heading and topics for the report.
Report Structure
You must submit your proposal as a PDF, written in 12pt font using one of the following typefaces: Arial, Calibri, Palatino, Courier, Times New Roman, Helvetica or Computer Modern Roman (if you use TeX/LaTeX). Deviations from these restrictions will result in a mark penalty. Headings may deviate from these restrictions if you wish. Below are the headings required for each section of the report, and an approximant page count for each section:
1. Title Page (Title, Name, Student ID, Date)
2. Table of contents
3. List of Figures
4. List of Equations
5. Introduction
6. Literature Review – (5 pg)
7. Problem Analysis – (1 pg)
8. Proposed Mechanical Design – (2 pg)
9. Proposed Electrical Design – (2 pg)
10. Proposed Software Design – (2 pg)
11. Compliance to Standards – (1 pg)
12. Expert topic - (2 pages)
13. Reference List
14. Software Flow Chart – (Appendix)
15. Schematic – (Appendix)
16. PCB Layout – (Appendix)
17. Gantt Chart – (Appendix)
18. Journal Of Progress – (Appendix)
19. Data Sheets for every electrical component - (Appendix)
Total page count should be around 16 pages. This does not include the Title Page, Table of Contents, List of Figures, List of Equations, Reference List and Appendix sections. It is expected that the final page count when these sections are included is much longer.
Report Content
The report should be written in plain English, and cover each of the headings listed above. Combining headings may lead to sections not being marked. It is recommended that you write succinctly. No extra marks are awarded for lengthy reports. It is often easier and much clearer to say something in a few sentences as opposed to a few paragraphs. All images should be relevant to the discussion. Avoid any image that is not relevant such as pictures of other manufacturers hardware or components. Its your work we are awarding marks for not someone else’s. Adding in lots of images, or large images, to try and make page counts is not recommended. If you have lots of images that you think are relevant, it is better to add them to the Appendix and reference them in the document. Only add the one or two required images to body of the report. Every single image that is not taken by your own hand must be referenced!
Introduction
Your introduction must contain the following information:
• a brief outline of the problem being addressed in this work,
• an outline of the solution methodology,
• a summary of the expected benefits
• a summary of the resources needed to create the solution (e.g. development time). This page is essentially a summary of what is to come and should convey succinctly what the rest of the document discusses.
Literature Review
Completing a literature review is a solid part of any project. You may have the most original idea ever, but you may not be the first to have it. Similarly knowing what has gone before, what resources exist, who has tried this sort of design in the past and what mistakes did they make can actually help you in your work. You are living in an age where information is at your fingertips. Books, data sheets, academic and scholarly articles, as well as other less robust sources such as YouTube and the internet in general are readily available. Announcing you could not find anything on this highly structured problem topic is a good indication that you didn’t look hard enough. The Literature Review is a look at existing literature, describing your findings and synthesizing new ideas based on what you learn. You won’t necessarily find a paper on ‘a robot that pics up resources’, but you may find papers on similar educational exercises, motors and motor drivers, robot mice, and a whole bunch of others. You will need to summarize your findings, break the project down into sections (sensing, localising, AI, etc) and find relevant papers on these topics. Your choice of references is important. Quality information that has been peer reviewed is more credible than websites and YouTube videos. Websites are a good place to start looking for terminology and keywords, but should NOT be included in a literature review because they have not been verified as accurate. A good place to look for papers is Google Scholar and IEEE explore. You will need to investigate this at the library. There you can get access to all the research publications. Make the effort, that is where the marks are.
Problem Analysis
The Problem Analysis section should contain your analysis of the problems that need to be solved in order to successfully achieve the performance standards (or goals) dictated in the main project. This analysis should contain as much detail as necessary to convey your understanding of these problems and permit a reader to understand all of the key features and constraints that the solution must address. For example, in analysing the problem of localisation, you would need to consider factors such as wheel diameter, wheel slip, sensor error, etc.
Proposed Mechanical Solution
The Proposed Mechanical Solution section should present first an outline of your general approach to solving the problem of the mechanical design. It should include
• Computation of speed and torque requirements
• Selection and justification of the motor selection
• Motor control/steering strategy
• Reference to the 5 overall sketches and 5 low fidelity models (sketches can be in the Appendix)
• A sketch of the current design including details of wheel, motor and battery placement
• A image of the low fidelity model current design including details of wheel, motor and battery placement
• Estimation of the weight of the robot
• Computation of the minimum turning radius of the robot
• A description of the number, type and placement of the sensors to be used along with explanations of all decisions made
• Chassis design
Proposed Electrical Design
Your Proposed Electrical Design should present an outline of the major electrical components, and why you have chosen them. A good way of justifying components is to compare them against others on the market. This section should include
• Selection and justification of each sensor
• Computation of electrical current and power and therefore details of the batteries requirement.
• Selection and justification of the battery used
• An estimate of the total amount of time that that the robot will be able to run off a single charge
• Selection and justification of the fuse used
• Description of the schematic and PCB layout. The detailed PCB and schematic may be in the Appendix section
Proposed Software Design
Your Proposed Software Design should describe the how the program is going to operate. This includes a description of the different states that the robot is going to need, why it needs these states and how it will transition from one state to another. In doing so, you should be able to determine the behaviour of the robot for each stage problem in the competition. You should also state how you will interface to each of the electrical components and if they are connected via interrupts, polling or some other form of communication (I2C, SDA, UART). Use of flow charts, Data Flow Diagrams and other pictorial means of describing your total software system is highly recommended.
Compliance to Standards
All engineers work to standards. It’s a matter of professional conduct, and it’s good practice for you to engage in meeting quality and safety standards. Granted your robot is small, almost tiny, but what if it were a real mining robot? Are there standards which cover industrial robots? Automation? Toys? You must find at least one relevant Australian Standard and describe how your system will follow this standard. Expect to be asked which standard you are following and how you have followed it during both oral presentations. The Library site has access to the Australian Standards data base. It is highly recommended that you use this resources.
Expert Topic
The Expert topic section is similar to the Literature Review, but should be focussed specifically on your expert topic. It should be written in such a way that it can be given to a high school student, and they will be able to have a basic understanding of the topic. For this section it is also expected that you find books and papers on the topic. You may also reference reliable websites, such as tutorials given by companies like adafruit, spark fun, analog devices, universities, etc. You may not reference non-reliable sources such as blogs, forums, instructables, etc. Find credible references, textbooks, papers and academic websites that are properly referenced themselves.
Reference List
Your Reference List must conform to the IEEE style for referencing. A reference list is a list of things that have an associated in text citation. If you have not referenced something in the text, it should not be on the reference list. If you are unsure how to format something using the IEEE style, please referee to the IEEE referencing standards on their website.
Software Flow Chart
The software flow chart should use all of the correct symbols for processors, decisions, etc as shown on the unit site. The states in the flow chart should match the states shown in the proposed software design, and the state transitions should be clearly shown.
PCB and Schematics
The PCB and Schematics should be directly taken from your Altium project. The use of any other program to make the schematic and PCB layout will not be marked. You ALSO need to include a separate zipped file with the Altium project file including the schematic, PCB layout, Schematic symbols and PCB symbols with your submission.
Gantt Chart
Your Gantt Chart should be a timetable for completing your project, including a list of design, implementation and evaluation tasks to be completed before the submission of the final Assessment task. Indicate the expected start and end dates for these tasks (or the actual date, if it has passed). Indicate on your chart the dates by which your development milestones will be reached (these milestones are up to you to choose, but might be things like ‘successful test of velocity control’, or ‘successful demonstration of arena edge detection, etc.). You must use a Gantt chart for this task.
Journal of Progress
As an engineer you may be expected to log what you have done, and how long you spent doing it. This is a common practice when billing a client as you will often bill for time working on a project. Therefore, you must keep a Journal of what you have done on each day so far, and how long you have spent on it. This does not have to be written in formal English. Each day does not need to be more than a couple of sentences long. For example:
30/3:
Spent 2 hours reading the assignment and unit material
Spent 2 hours looking for components
Total: 4 hours
At the start of the journal you need to show the total amount of hours that you have spent on the project so far. This is what would be billed to the client. It is expected that you would do this each day you work on the assignment, not try and do it at the end before the assignment is due. Your journal may be checked by the teaching team during the trimester to make sure you are on track. You may find it easier to use a program such as Microsoft Excel to log your hours.
Data Sheets
You need to find the data sheets for all of the components that you are using. This is from the smallest resistor, to the most complicated sensor. If you are using a component from the lab (eg 4.7K resistor), you will need to find an equivalent datasheet (for example a 1/2Watt metal film resistor 4.7K ). If you are using a breakout board for something (eg a sensor or a microcontroller), you only need to include the data sheet for the main component on the board (eg the sensor). Every silicon device has a data sheet. You just have to look hard enough.
Submission
Your report must be handed in by the due date in the Unit Guide. The report must be submitted to the unit site as a single PDF file. Any other file type will not be accepted and therefore not marked. You must also submit a second .zip file containing the Altium project files used for this assignment. The teaching team will show you how to create a zip file from within Altium which contains all the relevant files. (Use the Project Packager function ??) Check the rubric on the unit site for details on how the assessment will be marked.
Progress Presentation (10%)
Due Date as per Unit Guide
Introduction
This assessment task requires the creation and delivery of a 10 minute presentation detailing the proposed project design and the work to date. The presentation will be delivered during intensive week. The 10 minutes includes 5 minutes presenting and 5 minutes questions from the assessment panel. It is recommended that you go to as many presentations as possible to get ideas on areas where you might be stuck with your own system. This time should also be recorded in your journal.
Content
The presentation should detail your design solution to the project, highlighting any unique contributions your design brings to the solution. Your presentation should summarize the work you have completed to date, the work still to be completed, problems you have encountered and how you intend to overcome them. (Note for future reference, this is exactly the sort of thing employers are looking for in a job interview, so its good practice) A power point presentation (or similar) is to be used. This presentation must be limited to six slides, not including a title slide or a reference slide at the end. A slide order you might use is:
• Title slide
• Literature Review
• Mechanical Design
• Electrical Design • Software Design
• Gantt Chart detailing actual and future progress
You will need to generate a pdf version of your slides and submit it to the unit web page the night before your presentation. The pdf will be pre-loaded and will be used for your presentation. It is recommended that you practice before you submit the slides, and before you give the presentation. You may not use any cue cards or similar for the presentation, it is expected that you will be able to speak about your system with only the slides as prompts. Saying that, you are trying to sell your skills and your abilities as an engineer. Simply reading off the slides is considered poor form in a professional presentation.
You will need to show the current progress of your project. This will include the demonstration of one of the tasks that the robot needs to complete. This must be completed during the same week as the presentation at times indicated on the unit site. See the unit site for more details. The robot does not have to be fully complete for this demonstration, and does not have to fit within the size and weight requirements. Safety requirements, such as the use a fuse, must still be followed.
Assessment
You proposal will be assessed both with regards to the presentations contents, how this is presented, your ability to answer questions about the project and the robot demonstration. Please check the rubric for this assignment online.
Showcase (50%)
Due date as per Unit Guide
Marks will be awarded for the successful fulfilment of the tasks as defined, placement in the competition, for the robots construction and an oral defence. This task is worth 50% of the unit and must be passed to pass this unit. To pass this task the robot must be able to complete task 1, task 2 as defined in the task description as well as the oral defence.
If the robot cannot be demonstrated or fails to move from its initial position then no marks will be awarded for either of the tasks. The robot must pass scrutiny before it can complete any of the tasks. Scrutiny will include questions about the design and construction of the robot, as well as a safety and rule conformance check. You may be asked to modify the robot and bring it back to make sure it conforms to the rules (the robot is too heavy, there is no fuse, wiring is dangerous/unacceptable, etc). If the robot is unable to be presented on the demonstration day, you may present the robot for the following 5 business days. However, marks will be deducted for each day that it is late as per a normal assessment, and no marks can be awarded for the competition as you will not be able to compete.
Off-campus students are invited to attend the demonstration day to present and trial their robot. Those off-campus students that cannot attend must post or courier their robot to the unit chair in time for the demonstration day and provide a video to the unit chair to act as the oral defence. Questions may be sent back to the student that they must answer in another video. The student must also include clear operating instructions for how the robot operates. The robot will be ran as is, no additional code will be uploaded to the robot if it is sent in (eg different code for task 1, task 2 and the game). If a student wishes their robot to be returned, they must include a stamped, return addressed package.
Final Report (25%)
Due Date as per Unit Guide
Introduction
This assignment requires you to produce a written project proposal pertaining to the problems presented in the project. This should not be a continuation of the previous report, and it is expected that every section you wish to re-use will be rewritten/significantly modified. Remember, self-plagiarism is something you will need to account for.
Report Structure
You must submit your proposal as a PDF in 12pt font using one of the following typefaces: Arial, Calibri, Palatino, Courier, Times New Roman, Helvetica or Computer Modern Roman (if you use TeX/LaTeX). Code listings and electronic schematics may be in an appendix beyond the page limit. Deviations from these restrictions will result in a mark penalty. Your report must conform to the following structure:
1. Title Page (Title, Student Name, Student ID, Date)
2. Table of Contents
3. List of Figures
4. List of Equations
5. Introduction
6. Final Mechanical Design – (4 pages)
7. Final Electrical Design – (4 pages)
8. Final Software Design – (4 pages)
9. Compliance to Standards – (1 page)
10. Demonstration Performance – (1 page)
11. Future Commercial Design – (3 pages)
12. Expert Topic – (1 page)
13. Reference List
14. Software Flow Chart – (Appendix)
15. Final Schematic – (Appendix)
16. Final PCB – (Appendix)
17. Workflow Chart – (Appendix)
18. Journal of Progress – (Appendix)
19. BOM for a single unit – (Appendix)
20. BOM for 10,000 units – (Appendix)
21. Final Code – (Appendix)
22. Data Sheets – (Appendix)
The total page count should be around 20 pages. This does not include the Title Page, Table of Contents, List of Figures, List of Equations, Reference List and Appendix sections.
Report Content
The report should be written in plain English, and cover each of the headings listed above. Combining headings may lead to sections not being marked. It is recommended that you write succinctly. No extra marks are awarded for lengthy reports. It is often easier and much clearer to say something in a few sentences as opposed to a few paragraphs. You should only include images where needed. Adding in lots of images, or large images, to try and make page counts is not recommended. If you have lots of images that you think are relevant, it is better to add them to the Appendix and reference them in the document. Only add the one or two required images to body of the report.
Introduction
Your introduction must contain the following information: a brief outline of the problem being addressed in this work, an outline of the solution methodology, a summary of the expected benefits and a summary of the resources needed to create the solution (e.g., development time). This page is essentially a summary of what is to come and should convey succinctly what the rest of the document discusses.
Final Mechanical Solution
The Final Mechanical Solution section should present a detailed description of all of the mechanical components of your machine. It should not just be a copy and paste of the initial report. You may cover some of the same areas as the initial report, however it should be updated to the current design. Some areas you may wish to cover are (but are not limited to):
• Chassis design
• Material Selection
• Motor selection
• Final CAD design
• Construction
• An analysis of the good and bad things about your mechanical design
Final Electrical Design
Your Final Electrical Design should present an outline of the electrical components in your system, and why you chose them. This section could include (but is not limited to):
• Sensors used and why
• Details of the total run time (eg you measured how much current the robot takes for each action, so you can approximate the run time based off a charged battery)
• Description of the schematic and PCB layout. Why was the way you did it good/bad
• An analysis of the good and bad things about your design
Software Design
Your Final Software Design should describe the how the program operates. This includes a description of the different states that the robot uses, why it needs these states and how it will transition from one state to another. In doing so, you should have described the behaviour of the robot in different stages of the competition. You should also state how the code interfaces to each of the electrical components and if they are connected via interrupts, polling or some other form of communication (I2C, SDA, UART).
Compliance to Standards
From the standard that you picked in the initial report you must show how your robot complies with this standard. In areas where it may not, you must describe what you would have to do to make the robot conform to the standard.
Demonstration Performance
In this section you need to critically analysis how your robot faired during its performance. What went right, what went wrong, and what would you change given the opportunity.
Future Commercial Design
Now you have a final design, the next step would typically be to manufacture many, many units. In this section you need to describe what changes you would make to the design if you were to bring it to market. Assume you need to manufacture at least 10,000 units. It is expected that you will need to do some research (and therefore site some sources) on what you would need to do. Some things to consider are:
• The PCB - Is it fit for purpose in the current state? What would you change
• Electronics used – are there better/easier to use sensors or components for mass production?
• The Chassis Material – is there a cheaper material to use?
• The Chassis Construction – is the method that you used the best one for mass production? What other methods exists (find at least two mass production methods) and what would be applicable to your robot?
Expert Topic
A reflection of your use of your expert topic should be provided. You have shown your knowledge in the initial report, so this section is about how you applied this knowledge. You need to include a detailed explanation of how you applied this knowledge to your robot. You also need to show where you have asked a question to another student on the unit site, and where you have answered another students question.
Reference List
Your Reference List must conform to the IEEE style for referencing. A reference list is a list of things that have an associated in text citation. If you have not referenced something in the text, it should not be on the reference list. If you are unsure how to format something using the IEEE style, please referee to the IEEE referencing standards on their website.
Software Flow Chart
The software flow chart should use all of the correct symbols for processors, decisions, etc as shown on the unit site. The states in the flow chart should match the states shown in the proposed software design, and the state transitions should be clearly shown. This should be updated from the initial report, but it should not just be a copy of your code in flow chart form. Remember a flow chart is a high level planning tool/easy to understand representation of the code. It is not a low level description of how the code works
PCB and Schematics
The PCB and Schematics should be directly taken from your Altium project. The use of any other program to make the schematic and PCB layout will not be marked. You ALSO need to include a separate zipped file with the Altium project file including the schematic, PCB layout, Schematic symbols and PCB symbols with your submission.
Gantt Chart
Your Gantt Chart should be a timetable for how you completed your project, including a list of design, implementation and evaluation tasks completed before the end of the unit. Indicate the start and end dates for these tasks. Indicate on your chart the dates by which your development milestones have been reached (these milestones are up to you to choose, but might be things like ‘successful test of velocity control’, or ‘successful demonstration of arena edge detection, etc.). You must use a Gantt chart for this task.
Journal of Progress
As an engineer you may be expected to log what you have done, and how long you spent doing it. This is a common practice when billing a client as you will often bill for time. Therefore, you must keep a Journal of what you have done on each day so far, and how long you have spent on it. This does not have to be written in formal English. Each day does not need to be more than a couple of sentences long. For example:
30/3:
Spent 2 hours reading the assignment and unit material
Spent 2 hours looking for components
Total: 4 hours
At the start of the journal you need to show the total amount of hours that you spent on the project. This is the total that would be billed to the client. It is expected that you would do this each day you work on the assignment, not try and do it at the end before the assignment is due. This journal should cover from that start of the trimester to the submission of the last assessment piece. Your journal may be checked by the teaching team during the trimester to make sure you are on track. You may find it easier to use a program such as Microsoft Excel to log your hours.
BOM and costing for a single unit
You need to present a Bill Of Materials (BOM) for a single unit. This should be in the form of a table that has the name of each item, description of the use of each item, link to the items web page (remember, if you got the item off a site like ebay, it needs to be the link to the item from a repeatable seller) and total cost for the item. At the end there should be a total cost for a single unit. For things that you don’t buy but make, such as laser cut parts, you need to cost how much the part is worth. For example, if all of the components covered an area 100mm2, you would need to figure out the cost of that amount of material.
BOM and costing for 10,000 units
Same as the BOM for a single unit, except you need to add in the amount that comes in each packet, and how many packets you need. You may need to change the sources for different components to make it viable (eg instead of buying a packets of 10 resistors, you may need to buy a couple of reals of 4000 resistors). At the end you should list the total cost of all the components and material, the total cost used in the manufactured robots and the total cost of left over components.
Data Sheets
You need to find the data sheets for all of the components that you are using. This is from the smallest resistor, to the most complicated sensor. If you are using a component from the lab (eg 4.7K resistor), you will need to find an equivalent datasheet (for example a 1/2Watt metal film resistor 4.7K ). If you are using a breakout board for something (eg a sensor or a microcontroller), you only need to include the data sheet for the main component on the board (eg the sensor). Every silicon device has a data sheet. You just have to look hard enough.
Submission
Your report must be handed in by the due date in the Unit Guide. The report must be submitted to the unit site as a single PDF file. Any other file type will not be accepted and therefore not marked. You must also submit a second .zip file containing the Altium project files used for this assignment. The teaching team will show you how to create a zip file from within Altium which contains all the relevant files. (Use the Project Packager function ??) Check the rubric on the unit site for details on how the assessment will be marked.