PDRs ~ Each week one member of the group prepared a seven-minute formal, oral presentation that highlighted the status of the “product” being developed. Each week the presentation was “graded” and must contain the following elements:

- Current graphic to illustrate the design and a brief update on the status of the design.
- The results of the action taken in response to the previous week’s action items (obviously this information will not be required the first week!)
- List of 3 topics that represent key engineering challenges and the action that will be taken to address them during the next week.

Task Tracking Summaries ~ Weekly Group Task Tracking Summary (TTS) which details individual task-based time resource allocation for work conducted up to and including the beginning of the all-groups meeting each
Tuesday. This information will then be due every Tuesday for the remainder of the semester. Each group will develop their own collection procedure and this information will be included, and updated weekly, on the group’s web site. (Electronic submission)

Budget ~ The budget sheet simply outlines the groups spending during the duration of the project. One of the project requirements was for the overall budget to be below $400.

CCDR ~ While preparing for the CCDR, out team had to consider many questions concerning our project and its results.  The CCDR serves to answer many of these questions.  The first result was that through the successful completion and demonstration of the prototype, it was proven that our concept and design are feasible.  Despite the design being feasible, there are many ways in which it could be improved.  One of these ideas is including a guidance system to align the lift cup with the bottom of the slide.  Another improvement would be to better support motor shafts by using bearings on both ends of the shaft instead a bearing on one end and a coupler on the other.  Other ideas include making many of the parts out of metal instead of polyethylene, improving the repeatability of the design, and having a mechanism that would be able to fix bent leads on the fuse.  By making these and other improvements to the ACE design, the simple prototype would take several steps closer to becoming a final product.

Additional Information Sources ~ Here are some links to a few useful sited regarding the specific design problem and the basics of soldering techniques.

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