Memorandum

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Design4Practice (D4P) Program

To: Professor Cooperrider, Professor Sharber

From: Team 23: Zach Olson, Keith Caldwell, Mohammad Molani, and Brendan Jacobs

Date: 11/21/2013

Re: Final Report

Table of Contents Memo Page ................................................................................................................................................................1

Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................................1

Backstory ...................................................................................................................................................................2

Decision Matrix ..........................................................................................................................................................3

Building Process .........................................................................................................................................................4

Flow Chart..................................................................................................................................................................5

Circuit Schematic ........................................................................................................................................................7

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................7

Introduction

For the second Arduino project, our group wanted to not only meet the requirements of the project, we wanted to make an exceedingly impressive system that surpassed all the criteria. This memo includes every step of the process

it took to make our home security system. Each step was carefully orchestrated to ensure that our final product would be the best this group could possibly create. Every single group member was an active participant in putting fourth effort and time into the project, which is why this particular project has much more features and overall has much more depth.

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Backstory

Heading into the new age of technology, security methods are gaining complexity. Current technologies are sufficient, but have you ever wondered when those “Mission Impossible” kinds of technologies would hit home? Home security such as ADT could now implement laser technology which improves overall safety in homes of residents and

belongings. A laser trip-wire is a great way to add security if normal door and window security methods have failed, and a fire alarm with a siren is great to have if one isn’t built directly into the home already.

The Home Security System implements the following:

A loud LED siren to indicate a breach in security.

A laser and collector system with mirrors to be set up in any kind of home or office.

A motor that rotates the LED’s and the siren when activated to

ensure that every direction is visually and audibly alarmed.

A push-button to reset the alarm once the home-owner has safely secured the home.

Two LED’s to indicate whether the system is Armed or

Breached

A Temperature sensor acting as a fire alarm to also trigger the system

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Decision Matrix

Criteria

In order to fully understand the capabilities of all the potential ideas, criteria had to be fulfilled to narrow down the ideas. The criteria used for the decision matrix is as follows:

Interaction with user: Our group wanted to make sure that whatever design was chosen, we wanted the system to respond to the user’s actions. Utilizing this in a design allows the user to be more immersed in our design, keeping the user interested and curious in the reaction from the system. By incorporating this criterion into our

decision matrix, our overall design would potentially draw the instructors’ attention during the final evaluation of our final product. We expected that this feature would play a vital role in the final grade for our project.

Creativity: As we wanted a unique design, we wanted to make something that no one has ever seen before.

Our final design strives to impress the consumer. Creativity in this project is extremely important, considering that every group has the same materials. This part of the design would perhaps succeed the instructors’ expectations when the time came to grade the final product. Our goal was to somehow inspire those who graded

our project, and we felt that this could be accomplished by adding a sense of ingenuity to our final design.

Ease of Build: Considering that this project has a time limit, we needed to make sure that our final design was not too ambitious, or too simple. This is extremely important because if a design is too ambitious, it will show

up incomplete, and ultimately the design will fail. For this criteria, we ultimately made sure that the design was complex and intriguing enough to impress, and at the same time not too easy and boring. We found it difficult to set our goals high and to aim for a design that was possible to build within a reasonable amount of time. Time

is always a key component in delivering a final product, and the group came to the conclusion that we needed to be aware of the time given to finish the Arduino project. Although presenting an intriguing, well-finished

project that meets the professors’ expectations is important in achieving a reasonable grade, finishing the assignment on time is even more essential.

Craftsmanship: As a criteria of the last project, we wanted to make sure that we could make our final design look complete, and stand the test of time. This criteria is especially important because as largely seen in the

pencil holder, a lot of projects fell apart with minimal handling, rendering the message and the project broken and incomplete. Presenting a final product that looked finished and needed no additional work put into it, was

an important aspect to us. The design needed to stand out to those grading it, and our anticipation was that the final design would receive a better applause as long as we incorporated this specific criterion in our design.

Depth/Quality of Backstory: When choosing a design, we wanted to make sure that a good story can go along

with a good design. If there is a design that can be very well implemented, but reason for the task to be completed, the entire message of our design is then discarded. Throughout the makings of our final design we were constantly being reminded that our project had to have a purpose. Our group wanted to urge people to

evaluate our final product and to provide a reason for building the final design. We tried to avoid constructing something that just looked intriguing; we wanted to create something that could also serve a purpose in society.

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Conclusion Drawn from Decision Matrix

In determining our final design choice for the Arduino project, we implemented the decision matrix shown above.

Based on the criteria given within the decision matrix, idea 8 proved to be the most well suited idea for this

particular project. Idea 8 satisfied nearly each and every one of our criteria exceedingly well. The design was

evidently intriguing, creative, workable and purposeful according to our group. After reaching the conclusion that

this idea would be used for our final design, our group was impressed by how the decision matrix reflected our

overall opinion about our favorite design ideas. It was clearer to us what our expectations were concerning the

project and we had a full understanding as to how to implement our criteria into our selected design.

Building Process

The building process for this project was long, and tedious. The first step in this process was building the

circuit. Running the leads out to the breadboard from the Arduino processor proved to be the easiest step in this

process, with very few problems occurring there. One problem that did arise was the fact that one of our photo-

transistors happened to be burnt out, which was found after a good amount of troubleshooting and other testing.

Once the circuit was completely built and its functionality was correct, our group chose to go for the best possible

aesthetic look that our “product” could show. As per our groups desires, we wanted to make sure that all of our

wiring, or at least as much as humanly possible, was not out into the open, to be visually as professional as

possible. Reusing the box that was used in our prototype, we began by planning out how we would put everything

into the box, without changing any of the elements of the circuit. To implement this, our group had to extend

most of the wires off of the breadboard to be able to be mounted in the appropriate areas of the box. Once the

wires were extended, we had a small amount of problems due to wires shorting together, both at the breadboard

side of the leads, and at the extended areas also. After the wires had been extended, it became a matter of properly

mounting all of the components in their respective places. Most of this was trivial, though mounting the servo on

the top of the box, as well as the board to the bottom of the box (which then became the side of our product) was

less simple than our group had originally imagined. Another problem that occurred during this stage is that the

Idea 1 Idea 3 Idea 4 Idea 7 Idea 8

Interaction with User (15) 5 5 10 8 12

Creativity (25) 20 20 22 15 20

Ease of Build (30) 15 10 22 23 17

Craftsmanship (20) 10 8 13 14 18

Depth/Quality of Backstory (10) 8 5 7 4 8

Total 58 48 74 64 75

Decision Matrix for Arduino Project 2

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leads on our first thermistor actually snapped from the thermistor body itself, causing it to be rendered unusable.

From this setback, we had to get another thermistor, wire it back into our circuit, and then test and recalibrate it

so that it worked properly. One setback that was unable to be fixed before the deadline of this project was the

use of our push button reset. The push button was difficult to implement because we found it nearly impossib le

to extend from the breadboard. In lieu of this, we chose to use an external device (in this case a pencil) to extend

the buttons reach. To use our external, we had to create a coupler for the external to go into, so that the pencil

would accurately hit he button every time. Although this was done successfully, an unforeseen setback was the

fact that when the button was depressed, it actually moved the box, which caused problems with keeping the laser

beam onto the photo-transistor.

Overall, our group achieved the building goals that we had set out to accomplish, building a successful

circuit and being able to shield all of our wiring and circuit from the general public, which we felt looked much

nicer, and cleaner.

Flow Chart

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Circuit Schematic

Conclusion After working for two weeks as a group, we did face difficulties in how we are going to build the project.

One of the problems was how to stable and weight the part inside the box while we have a short wires to connect

the part, we did find a long wire and cut it into pieces so that we can connect the parts together and have some

spaces. Also one of the most difficult parts of the project was tapping the Thermistor with the wires. While

tapping, unfortunately the Thermistor broke apart. So that we have to find out a new one and stick the right wire

in order to not get mix it up. So we did attach the Thermistor with the right wires and tap it precisely. After testing

the thermo sensor, the results were satisfying and we could achieve the temperature alarm. Another difficulty we

faced is how we setup the laser position so that we have a precise hit on the photo resister. It is very easy for the

laser to hit the photo resister directly but as a group, we decided to have a creative and critical way for the laser

to hit the photo resister. So we decided to have three mirrors setting up in deferent directions and connect the hit

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travelling from the three mirrors ends up on the photo resister. After setting up the right direction for the laser and

the mirror, we did have a great result as a direct hit for the photo resister in order to breach and whatever cross

the laser, the alarm will switch on.

Last but not least, after running the project several times, we did run the project perfectly as we planned.

The reason behind our accomplishment is that we did a nice job as one unit facing a lot of difficulties and did a

nice job as well in how we solve the problems we had a group voting as an election for every single idea we have

putted in the project and that is the reason that brought us to success and accomplish the project.