Service Learning Week 4 - Capstone Ideas

Capstone Ideas

The main assignment for this week was to come up with some capstone project ideas. I lucked out because I try to keep a good buffer full of project ideas like this. The difference of course is that I generally don't complete them because I am jumping around from one thing to the next learning new techniques and only working on larger projects at work. So what are my 3 main ideas?

1) Mesh networking solar garden light: I have played around turning jars into mesh networks before but never finished a solid garden light. So this project would be turning my concepts in to reality making a high end garden light.

  '

2) Multi-sample colorimeter: This device would shine light through tubes of liquids and measure how much of a given wavelength is absorbed. It isn't quite a spectrometer, but is a simple useful device for measuring samples of fish tank water for ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite. The icing on this project cake is that it would have wifi or bluetooth to log the data through your phone or home network (undecided) and hold multiple samples. So each colorimeter in the array would be used for a dedicated sample like ammonia measurements. Then you can shake up each vial and put them in their dedicated slot for sample measurement after the sample settle and changes color. 

Example open source colorimeter by IO Rodeo

3) Mobile application for partkeeper inventory software: Partkeeper is the best open source inventory management software I have come across. It isn't a manufacturing resource planning software. It also isn't an enterprise resource planning software. It is an inventory management software. This is a key distinction because a lot of the web based solutions to this problem are offered as "software as a service" with a monthly fee and have way too many features. For managing labs like I am interested in that is excessive and distracting. My interest is making sure that we have the proper components in stock and that we have a reference component list for generating new designs. 

The part that is missing from PartKeepr is a mobile application for rapid inventory assessment which would be my project. Finger worn, battery powered wireless barcode scanners like the RS507 are available to interface with a smart phone via bluetooth for taking quick stock. This kind of application would allow for workload segmentation by dividing ordering and stock assessment between different individuals. As things are now generally a lab manager will take inventory and restock parts in a tedious process. This process should be streamlined to include wearable and smart phone technology.

RS507 finger worn bluetooth barcode scanner for rapid aquisition of product identification codes

 Other news

In other news we continue to learn about social justice through a steady workload of reading and videos. In this area I think the primary way I can make a contribution is through assisting others with technological skill development. On a day to day basis that consists of short conversations where I give others key information required to continue their skill development. These conversations can also include quick tutorials where I show people how to do things like design simple parts in 3d CAD software like SolidWorks. By getting people in the door designing very simple mechanical components or printed circuit boards they can kickstart their learning and get in the game.

Service Learning Week 4 - Just figure it out

Project Management

This weeks key question as part of the service learning class is regarding project management. My background in project management is focused on engineering and gardening. They might seem like very different areas but they have a lot in common. In gardening when I move to a new home the first thing to settle is my fruit trees since they will take the longest. Then I plant my berries so they can reach out and grow into large bushes that produce year after year. Finally come the vegetables, since their lives are measured in weeks.

For a hardware engineering project, using a firmware download station as an example, you want to verify functionality as soon as possible. This means requesting a sample printed circuit board assembly ASAP. Without a sample board you are going to be out of luck, and who knows where that is in manufacturing. People can also be busy and slow to respond so critical human interactions should be loaded to the front of the que. Then you can begin your fixture development based on the presumed correct PCB layout files. A repetitive cycle of e-mails should be sent of course to ensure you get the physical components you need from the PCB designers. Then you begin your 3d prints while still working on your fixture design so you can make sure everything works with a sample board you get. From there on it should be smooth sailing because you have front loaded the critical tasks and verified your design meets the requirements with prototype components.

Then of course if you are a project management professional you can spin several plates (projects) above your head on tall sticks all at once! The end result of successful project management being a peaceful work environment where the critical problems are loaded to the front and available technical and personnel resources are utilized efficiently.

Service Learning Project This Week

Why the title "just figure it out"? This is a classic saying that I have always told my friend, a bit to their frustration. It's true though, you can just figure it out. Computers and electronics are designed by people so they make sense. You may not understand it at the beginning of a problem but you can absorb it. That means if you just remain calm and work at it bit by bit your odds are pretty good at solving your problem whatever it may be. 

Take the LPX-600 3d scanner by Roland found at Monterey Penninsula College (or even the LPX-60) for an example. This scanner "does not support" 64 bit windows 7, windows 8, windows 10, anything past windows XP it looks like. Reading that is pretty frustrating if you'd like to use it with a newer computer! So relax, think for a second. What does it mean that this scanner is not supported under these operating systems? I tried installing the control software and that installed fine. What didn't work was the drivers. So you can look on the internet and download a virus from some Russian website, or look in the drivers folder and see what it really is. It turns out that this device uses drivers that are made for a FTDI communications chip. Conveniently enough they even still update these drivers.

With new FTDI Virtual COM port drivers the only thing you need to do is copy a few lines from the drivers supplied by Roland to add the device information to the new driver information file.[Instructions on github soon] Then you can use the device under windows 7 64 bit and probably newer operating systems supported by FTDI as well. 

Overall my point is that people need to relax, think things through for a second, and keep moving up stream. Maybe there is a Linux version of the software that solves your problem? Maybe you can figure out what chip is inside a machine that you are actually talking to? Whatever the problem is if you don't freak out and just keep at it you can figure out any problem that you need to.