The largest issue that I have faced in the puck project was schedule management. It is obvious that most design changes and troubleshooting occurred in the last week and a half of the deadline. While the project was active in the weeks leading up to the deadline, most design was selfish – in the sense that I was making prototypes, evaluating them and loosely passing them off to other team members in a staggered fashion (I didn’t deliver enough fully assembled, ‘state-of-the-art’ products), and making design changes within this small bubble of evaluation. I think that a more correct process would have been to work full force on complete designs that pass on to team members that will be deploying the product (Deepti). Less prototypes made with more numerous/major changes at each step. I think that stronger direction in design (less ‘wandering’) would inherently follow. The important thing is that other team members are working with fully assembled products that have actual relevance to the project goal rather than parts of products that have little relevance to what people will actually be working with. This may be difficult to do, but I think it can be accomplished if a deadline schedule is carefully planned and communicated – the more in advance, the better.
Also, while it was important to create a new design and a new generation of the product, I think it may have been more effective to spend more time refining the original (Gray’s) design. I think that with careful consideration and the same amount of effort that was put into the new puck generation, we could have solved the underlying issues with the previous generation and would have ended up with a more robust product that is less complicated to assemble and manufacture. But I think this is more a question of overall project direction?
Specific changes, small to large – in no particular order:
FSR circuit board:
-rearrange board so that UI components (switches, USB) are close together – prettier, easier to panel
-move FSR connection closer to edge of board, move/reorient battery clip closer to edge of board, move selector header to get as many components out from under clip as possible.
-try to move IDC connector so it could be de/attached while boards are still screwed in
-order USB receptacles with mounting feet
-I realized after the proposed battery switch that a different battery with different power properties and form factor may have been better suited to this project. For example, if using the iPod batteries with the small connector, the coin battery could be ditched and the FSR board could be decreased in size by about 50%. This could substantially effect the rest of the body design – maybe sandwiching the two boards and the battery, maybe just the mote and the battery, etc…
trigger body:
-integrate ‘spacers’ into body
-integrate ‘spacers’ into lid to decrease the distance between counterbore and screw engagement
-add third screw to FSR board (or move second screw) closer to UI components/USB
-more carefully evaulate part thickness trends. Would be useful to increase space under FSR board and perhaps take a tradeoff in lid thickness
-consider a different fastening system for attaching the two halves of the trigger body. Experiment more with plastic clipping. Otherwise, add two more screw holes to secure each corner of the body
discs:
-consider threadless fastening options
-consider a ‘skirt’ that could hide dead space and decrease overall thickness
-find more robust ways to fasten rubber and FSRs
overall:
-concentrate more on fault tolerant design. There were very low tolerances with important assembly areas such as screw holes and mating.
-organize a standard ‘tool set’ that has procedures and decision making tools for choosing mounting types, screw types, hole sizes, etc. Try to decrease the number of different types of hardware.