PRODUCT LEAD

SENIOR DESIGN CAPSTONE PROJECT

PRODUCT LEAD - ROLE & Responsibilities

As the Product Lead for the team, I was responsible for the following elements:

Product Lead

  • Team Work plan 

  • Documenting technical specifications sheet  

  • Designing and creating the team website

  • Developing project roadmap & milestones chart 

  • Maintaining and documenting technical specifications sheet  

Project Manager 1

  • Weekly Agenda

  • Weekly Team Action Items 

  • Create and update team Gantt chart 

Mechanical 

  • SolidWorks Automated Sliding Door (ASD) Design

  • Hardware Testing

Manufacturing 

  • Developing and maintaining the system Bill of Materials 

  • ASD Manufacturing Process Sheet 

Prototyping

  • Mini Docking system prototype including the ASD and Trash Bin components  

  • Designing and developing a scaled vision of the lifting/tilting mechanism using pan/tilt servo motors kit

  • Developing code in c/c++ for Arduino prototyping

DELIVERABLES

The following includes my final deliverable for the projects:

1 | Product VISION

Product Process: How it Works 

  1. Set up: Sync Drone & Dock  

  2. Autonomous Cleaning 

  3. Autonomous water to Waste Docking 

  4. Manual Waste Removal 

Target Group 

The product aims to target local governments and gather local groups to fund and promote this product for use in clean-ups across the country and the world. 

  • Water Cleaning Organizations 

  • Grassroots Cleaning Organizations 

  • Local Governments 

  • Environmental Protection Agency 

User Story 

User Persona 

A grassroots non-profit organization working to protect and preserve the water quality, ecosystems, and preservation. 

Scenario 

This group gathers thousands of volunteers to pick up trash from local streams, creeks, and rivers. 

Pain Points 

  • Time it takes to pick up trash 

  • Hard to capture waste floating in the middle of waterway 

  • Equipment Required 

    • Gloves 

    • Bags 

    • Trash Picker 

    • Boats 

    • Nets 

  • Process of Disposal 

Product Mission 

The product's mission is to aid in severe waterway pollution to restore and protect fragile ecosystems biodiversity, water quality and climate change resilience. 

Goal 

  • Easy Removal of clear plastic, bio-waste, and other debris from waterways 

  • Protect vulnerable communities from Environmental inequities

  • Manually operated System for smaller-scale cleanups 

  • Autonomously controlled system for quick clean up projects 

  • Easily deployable and modular structure 

  • Maintain Healthy waterways

2 | MECHANICAL DESIGN - AUTOMATED SLIDING DOOR DESIGN (ASD)

The mechanical design was divided into 5 subsystems:

  1. Automated Sliding Door

  2. Lifting Mechanism

  3. Tilting Mechanism

  4. Trash Bin

  5. Drone

The following is my contribution to the teams Mechanical Design:

Final Presentation (1).gif
 

3 | SPECIFICATIONS

MVP Upcoming Features 

Dock 

  • Waste Collection Tracking 

Drone 

  • Bio-detection 

  • Autonomous Operation 

  • Mission Planning 

  • Obstacle Collision avoidance 

  • Water-life Collision avoidance

MVP Major Features 

Dock 

  • Lifting & Tilting Mechanism

  • Automated Sliding Door

  • Drone Charging 

  • Waste Collection

  • Removable waste bin for easy disposal 

  • Camera Drone Detection  

Drone 

  • Remote handheld control  

  • Waste Removal

4 | PRODUCT ROAD MAP

Monthly Plans

I created a monthly plan based on the teams final goal for the project and the project timeline:

February 

  • Identify Need & Constraints 

  • Research the Problem 

  • Imagine: Develop Possible Solutions

January 

  • Project Conception  

  • Identify World and Community Problems

  • Development of Possible Senior Design Concepts 

    • Idea 1: Waste Clean-up Drone 

April 

  • Finalized Project Plan 

  • Formal Project Proposal to Stakeholders 

  • Testing Plan 

    • Hardware 

    • Software 

    • Integration

March 

  • Plan: Select a Promising Solution 

  • Concept Development 

    • System Functionality 

    • Subsystem Functionality 

  • Projected Project Plan & Timeframe

June 

  • Finalized Prototyping Materials 

  • Complete Part Sourcing 

  • 3D Print Finalized Components 

  • Create: Build a Prototype

May 

  • Finalized Subsystem Design 

  • Finalized Material Selection 

  • Solidworks Simulations 

  • Testing commences 

  • Informal Presentation to Stakeholder for Project Progress

August 

  • Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Developed 

  • Formal Presentation of MVP presented to Stakeholders 

  • Improvements and Future Design Considerations

July 

  • Test and Evaluate Prototype 

  • Modify Prototype

September 

  • Product Funding 

Project Timeline 

The Senior Design Project is broken into two course sequences that span two semesters, eight months in length. The following is the project progress throughout this time frame: 

Senior Design Project II: 

Part I:  

  • SolidWorks Design 

  • Refinement & Finalizing Design 

  • Informal and Formal Oral Presentation of Design 

  • Written Presentation of Design 

Part II:  

  • SolidWorks Simulations  

  • Cardboard & 3D Printing Prototyping 

  • Implementing the Design Developed

  • Packaging and Fabrication of an Engineering Prototype

Senior Design Project I: 

Part I: 

  • Selection of an appropriate engineering project for design 

  • Development of time and financial budgets 

  • Milestone graphs 

Part II:  

  • Laboratory Researching

  • Designing

  • Prototyping

  • Debugging

  • Acquiring Data on Subsystem Designs