Description of Project EET-01
Design Task
Your task is to build a “dalek”
which can compete in a battle to “exterminate” its enemies. If you don’t know what a dalek is, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho. Your dalek requires a rotating platform,
driven by an electric motor and equipped with a toilet plunger (see
picture). The dalek points this plunger
at its enemies to exterminate them. Your
dalek must sense its enemies by watching for the infrared signature they give
off and/or listening for the audible sound they emit, orienting its plunger
accordingly. Each team receives a sample
of the enemy, with which to practice.
On testing day, daleks will compete to locate enemy targets first.
Selecting the Project and Joining a Team
Initially, you can opt into teams by
visiting http://engg1000.ee.unsw.edu.au and following the link marked “join a team.” This same link is available via the course
web-page on WebCT VISTA, under the “Electrical Engineering and
Telecommunications” project, within the “Projects” module. The “join
a team” link provides you with a means to look at the current composition
of each team (of course, they will all be empty initially). You can join any of the teams which are not
yet full, but you must also provide some promotional text, advertising what you
believe you bring to the project. This
information is available for other prospective team members to see as they
consider which team they would like to join.
In this way, you can promote your abilities (or just your good looks)
and endeavour to attract similar or complementary team mates. This system closes by 1:30pm on Monday of
Week 2, after which the composition of teams may be altered only by laboratory
demonstrators or the lecturer in charge (via password access).
Materials
and Assistance Provided by the School
Each team, of approximately 8 students, meets
each week with a member of academic staff, who acts as a mentor. Mentors are highly qualified and very
interesting people. You should take it
as a privilege to get to know them.
Mentors will play a significant role in your assessment, which also
allows us to avoid written assignments (apart from two project reports).
Each week, you will have 3 hours of scheduled
time in a well equipped laboratory, to develop your knowledge and prototype
your designs. Laboratories are staffed
with extremely capable demonstrators, most or all of whom are students whose
performance in the 3rd year product design subject was
exemplary. Last year, some project teams
were so impressed by the demonstrators that they gave them prizes.
The School’s Electronics Workshop is well
equipped and staffed with helpful and friendly technicians. In 2006, the workshop staff performed well
above the call of duty, winning the Dean’s
award for exceptional and outstanding service. The Electronics Workshop is able to provide
you with a wide range of electronic components, relevant to your project,
without charge. There may, however, be
some small components that you need to purchase yourself.
Relevant
Technical Background Delivered by the School
In order to do any kind of meaningful
Electrical Engineering design, you will need to learn a lot of things that you
would not naturally know on entry to university. To make your learning experience as fruitful and
focused as possible, the School of EE&T will provide a series of lectures
covering electronic circuit design principles, with many relevant
examples. The material in these lectures
is valuable also to students taking other degree programs, since an elementary
understanding of electrical circuits is required in many disciplines. Other topics covered include project
management, technical communications and general design thinking. To ensure that all team members make the
effort to empower themselves with the necessary skills for this challenging
design project, there will be two small examinations, worth a total of 20% of
the final mark (see below).
Assessment
Structure for this Project
|
Assessment
task |
Percentage of
final mark |
|
Faculty-wide design exercise (individual) |
5% |
|
Laboratory skills & circuit principles mini examinations
(individual) |
20% |
|
Active learning, planning & participation, assessed by mentors
(individual) |
15% |
|
Acceptance testing (sub-group) |
10% |
|
Final testing (team) |
10% |
|
Laboratory notebooks, checked by mentors & lecturer (individual) |
10% |
|
Design proposal (sub-group) |
10% |
|
Final report (team) |
20% |
Teams
and Sub-Groups
Teams consist of approximately 8 students
each. Your whole team meets together
each week with your mentor, who is a member of the School’s academic
staff. In the first meeting, your mentor
will help to divide the team into two sub-groups: SG-A works on the rotating
platform, associated drive electronics and extermination mechanism; SG-B works
on signal detection schemes. Each
sub-group has its own set of design objectives which are the subject of
“acceptance testing” in Week 8. The two
sub-groups in your team should then focus on integrating their work, fixing
problems and optimizing the overall design, leading up to the final dalek battle
which will be held in Week 12 (see the earlier section: “Schedule for the
School of EE&T”).
Acceptance
Testing Objectives (Week 8)
Sub-group SG-A is responsible for constructing a
rotating platform, which can wield the toilet plunger issued to you by the
School. You may build this platform in
any way you like, noting that some marks will be awarded for aesthetic appeal. The platform must be driven by a small electric
motor and associated drive electronics, powered by at most 8 (eight) D-size
1.5V alkaline batteries (not provided by the School). Using this same power source, the platform
must also provide an audible or visual means for signalling that the enemy target
is being exterminated. Everything from
flashing lights to a recorded “exterminate” message are potential candidates
here. The platform must provide a 3-wire
electrical interface to the circuitry being developed by sub-group SG-B. This 3-wire interface consists of:
1.
a
reference terminal (we will call it ground);
2.
an
“exterminate” terminal, whose voltage is expected to lie between 0V and +5V
above that of the ground terminal, with anything over +3V interpreted as the
command to “exterminate” a detected enemy target; and
3.
a
motor control terminal, whose voltage is expected to lie between -1V and +1V,
relative to that of the ground terminal, where motor speed and direction should
be roughly proportional to the applied voltage.
During acceptance testing, 5 marks will be
awarded for satisfying the above objectives.
The remaining 5 marks will be awarded for a combination of aesthetic appeal and
the minimum time required for your platform to rotate 180 degrees, from a
standing start to a dead stop when the “exterminate” signal is activated. For testing purposes, you will be allowed to
supply any desired combination of signals to the 3-wire interface, under manual
control.
Sub-group SG-B is responsible for developing
signal detection electronics and apparatus.
Each team will receive a single instance of the enemy target. Also, a formal description of the signals
emitted by the enemy target will be posted separately via WebCT VISTA
site. Briefly, the target emits a
characteristic high frequency infra-red signature, as well as an auditory
tone. Moreover, the enemy target puts
out a characteristic “heartbeat” via a 2-wire interface which you can plug into
your detection system. During final
testing, all enemy targets will have a single synchronized heartbeat. The heartbeat is directly related to the
auditory and infra-red signals emitted by the enemy target, so you may find
that you can exploit it in your design.
You will be issued with two small electret microphones and two infra-red
sensing photo-transistors, some or all of which may form the front-end of your
detection system. Your system must also
be powered by at most 8 (eight) D-size 1.5V alkaline batteries (not provided by
the School).
For the purpose of acceptance
testing, the detection system produced by SG-B should signal its output via
three different coloured LED’s:
1.
one
LED should be illuminated if the target is detected to the left of a nominated
pointing direction;
2.
a
second LED should be illuminated if the target is detected to the right of the
nominated pointing direction; and
3.
the
third LED should be illuminated if the target is detected to be roughly within ± 10 degrees of the nominated pointing
direction.
The nominated pointing direction
should be clearly identified on the physical implementation of the detection
system.
During acceptance testing, 5 marks will be
awarded for correctly distinguishing between targets to the left and targets to
the right of the nominated pointing direction, over a range of -90 to -30 degrees
and +30 to +90 degrees. The remaining 5
marks will be allocated on the basis of design principles and the accuracy with
which the ± 10 degree condition can be
detected.
Final
Performance Testing Objectives (Week 12)
Performance testing will be conducted in two
phases. In the first phase, each team
must demonstrate a functional dalek, able to detect targets at close range
(i.e., within 1 metre), orient itself to face them and produce its
“extermination” signal. 6 marks will be
awarded for satisfying these objectives, with some dependence on the time taken
to “exterminate” the target, together with the pointing accuracy of the toilet
plunger at the point of extermination.
The final 4 marks associated with performance
testing will be awarded based on a second, competitive phase. In this phase, multiple daleks will be
arranged on platforms of different heights, so that each can get a clear view
of the available targets. Targets will
be activated in random sequences and points will be awarded to the dalek which
first locates (and exterminates) each target.
To facilitate this, each team must return the enemy target with which it
was issued at the beginning of the course, so that it can be employed on
testing day.
Your dalek may adopt any strategy it likes for
this competition, including the emission of extraneous signals to fool its
competitors; however, non-competing daleks may not interfere with those in the
competition. You should also note that
the competition will be held outdoors, weather permitting. Moreover, the competition will involve enemy
targets located at various distances, ranging from approximately 1 metre to
approximately 5 metres.