User:BDolge/Pet Food Controller

This page has two purposes; first, to provide a location to bring together the content from each team members weekly wiki documentation in a central location to improve information sharing and access while documenting the progress of the project as a whole, and second, to provide a forum for bringing the project documentation into line with the CDIO documentation format.

The four types of project documentation come from the cdio.org's syllabus. CDIO has a chance of evolving into a world wide engineering accreditation organization. CDIO is a world wide organization that evolved out of MIT aerospace engineering. As of fall 2012 there are 90 members worldwide including 15 US Universities. For a better introduction, read this general engineering introduction wikibook page.

These are links to the four CDIO syllabus sections. These links are a maximal set of possible engineering tasks that need to be documented. All engineering project tasks have to be named in the outline. No project or CDIO document is expected to do all tasks. Copy text from the pages linked below and add information to document that your group has considered and addressed important areas of concern relative to your project.


 * Conceive CDIO

The first step in any project needs to begin with defining a solid and concise statement. As our groups were first assigned Heidi Schultz had already had an idea of what she wanted to design. Even with a preliminary design I knew that there were still a plethora of questions and concerns that needed to be addressed. The first and foremost, which I knew from previous experience, was establishing a client base. Knowing exactly what our customer market was would allow us to gear our design specifically for who we wanted to sell to. For example, I brought up the point that whatever our final product was going to be it needed to be of an appropriate size because having pets I knew that I wouldn't want another bulk item sitting in my living room. The conceive process in any project, especially a group project, is ultimately the most important task of them all. It not only drives a common agreement in moving forward but it is the decision that I refer back to every time there's a question regarding what, specifically, I need to accomplish (MT).


 * Design CDIO

Based upon the decisions made in the Conceive stage we were able to begin the programming and physical design process. I first focused on the feeder box and gear assembly that controls the lid opening. I used Sketchup to design a 3x6x12 inch box with a groove 1/8 inch from the top edge for the lid to slide in. The right side is slightly larger to allow for a piece of rack gear to protrude into the compartment and link with the gear assembly and still be able to retract completely to open. I also added mounts for the servo (see the below image). The servo specs were in mm and my sketch in inches, so I converted the measurements and used those illustrated in the image below.


 * Implement CDIO
 * Operate CDIO