Design Review

Video Lecture

Video, Slides

Description

The design review is a 30-minute meeting intended to ensure that the team has a successful project. Students will present (using slides in tandem with their design document) and defend their design while instructors critique it, ask questions, and indentify any infeasible or unsafe aspects. Note that the instructors are not here to attack your design, but to straightforwardly inform you when you may be heading down an unsuccessful path.

Instructors and TAs will ask questions throughout and may choose the order of the blocks to be discussed. Specifically, here is what the course staff are primarily looking for:

  1. Evidence that the overall design and high-level requirements solve the problem stated.
  2. Check if the overall design has suitable difficulty for course standards and completion in one semester. Scope may need to be adjusted if otherwise.
  3. Check team members' engineering preparedness to implement each module.
  4. Check that each team member is assigned an equal portion of the project effort.

Prepare for the following sequence.

  1. Promptly project your slides or other content on projector.
  2. Introduce team members (name, major, and the project part each is in charge of).
  3. Present problem statement and proposed solution (<1 minutes) following the template in DDC (see Description 1.a)
  4. Present design overview (<5 minutes)
    1. High-level requirements: check DDC
    2. Block diagram: check DDC
    3. Physical design
  5. For the remainder of the review, you will participate in a detailed discussion of the design. Plan to cover each block, one at a time, beginning with the most critical. The course staff will ask questions and may step in to guide the discussion. Be prepared to discuss all aspects of your design with a focus on the following.
    1. Requirements & Verification: (see DDC); We'll look at all the important block requirements. Prepare to justify the components chosen and compare with important alternatives.
    2. Evidence that the design meets requirements (use the following as applicable)
      • Simulations
      • Calculations
      • Measurements
      • Schematics
      • Flowcharts
      • Mechanical drawings
      • Tolerance analysis: check DDC
      • Schedule: Suggestions:
        1. Think about what you can do in parallel, what has to be sequential;
        2. Work on hardware before software;
        3. Perform unit testing before system testing;
        4. Unit test each module on a breadboard before starting PCB design);
        5. Leave margin for unexpected delays or accidents. You are mostly responsible for those exceptions, just as if you were the owner of this senior design business;
      • Cost:hourly rate is ~$50 not $10. In addition, apply the 2.5x overhead multiplier ($125/hr is the cost of your senior design business), which includes the cost of salaries of you, your boss, CxOs, sales, janitors, etc.

Grading

The DR Grading Rubric is available to guide your DR preparation. Two sample Design Review documents are available as examples of what we expect: a Good Sample DR, a Moderate Sample DR, and a good example R&V table as it was presented in a final report. Notes are made in red type to point out what is lacking. Note that the grading rubrics and point structure may have evolved since these reports were generated, so use them only as a guide as to what we are generally expecting.

Submission and Deadlines

Your design review presentation should be ready before your Design Review. You do not need to upload this powerpoint to the course website. You will be graded on your live presentation on the day of the Design Review with the course staff.

Assistive Chessboard

Featured Project

Problem: It can be difficult for a new player to learn chess, especially if they have no one to play with. They would have to resort to online guides which can be distracting when playing with a real board. If they have no one to play with, they would again have to resort to online games which just don't have the same feel as real boards.

Proposal: We plan to create an assistive chess board. The board will have the following features:

-The board will be able to suggest a move by lighting up the square of the move-to space and square under the piece to move.

-The board will light up valid moves when a piece is picked up and flash the placed square if it is invalid.

-We will include a chess clock for timed play with stop buttons for players to signal the end of their turn.

-The player(s) will be able to select different standard time set-ups and preferences for the help displayed by the board.

Implementation Details: The board lights will be an RGB LED under each square of the board. Each chess piece will have a magnetic base which can be detected by a magnetic field sensor under each square. Each piece will have a different strength magnet inside it to ID which piece is what (ie. 6 different magnet sizes for the 6 different types of pieces). Black and white pieces will be distinguished by the polarity of the magnets. The strength and polarity will be read by the same magnetic field sensor under each square. The lights will have different colors for the different piece that it is representing as well as for different signals (ie. An invalid move will flash red).

The chess clock will consist of a 7-segment display in the form of (h:mm:ss) and there will be 2 stop buttons, one for each side, to signal when a player’s turn is over. A third button will be featured near the clock to act as a reset button. The combination of the two stop switches and reset button will be used to select the time mode for the clock. Each side of the board will also have a two toggle-able buttons or switches to control whether move help or suggested moves should be enabled on that side of the board. The state of the decision will be shown by a lit or unlit LED light near the relevant switch.