EEC172 Final Project Assignment

Final Project Deadlines

• Project Proposal
  • (5/22) Sections A01, A02, A04
  • (5/23) Sections A03, A05
• Project Demo/Verification (no extensions)
  • (6/05) Sections A01, A02, A04
  • (6/06) Sections A03, A05
• (6/09) Project Deliverables (no extensions)

Note: This page may be updated, please refresh the page regularly for changes to appear.

Overview

For the final project, you will design and prototype a product that makes use of what you've learned in previous labs.

The project is divided into 3 primary components:

1. [ 5 pts] Project Proposal and Bill of Materials (BOM)
2. [65 pts] Live Demonstration and Verification
3. [30 pts] Project Deliverables
   1. [7.5 pts] In-class Presentation
   2. [15 pts] Written Final Report
   3. [7.5 pts] Project Webpage and Video Demo

Note: grades for each component will be scaled to these point values if they do not match 1:1.

The product you design and prototype is up to you— past students have done games, toys, GPS devices, and even a self-balancing robot!

However, there are some specific requirements that your project must meet:

• the project must be standalone: your prototype demonstration's firmware must boot from flash, with no connections to a host machine necessary other than for power. (yes, this means you cannot control the device with a UART terminal interface. you should come up with a direct means of control.)

• the prototype must be interactive: your project must incorporate a significant element of human interactivity.

• the design must meet the following specifications:

  • Use the CC3200 microcontroller as core component
  • Use 2 Hardware Communication Protocols (I2C, SPI, UART, I2S, etc.)
  • Use a web service (AWS IoT, third-party, or custom implemented)
  • Use at least 2 sensing devices (IR receiver, accelerometer, etc.)

• the project must be sufficiently complex: your project should be significantly more complex than any of the labs we have done thus far. (you will a chance to receive feedback from your TAs during lab after your project proposal has been submitted)

You may use all lab components used in past labs for free, and are welcome to purchase and use other components as well.

The instructional staff will also be assigning Best Project Awards to up to 2 teams from each section based on their project's complexity, creativity, and performance. The winning teams will receive full points on all in-class quizzes if they provide a well-documented, neatly wired, and polished demo, as well as a demo video highlighting the main features of their project.

Out of consideration for your fellow students, if you intend to compete for best project, we ask that the total cost of any additional components you use would not exceed $50 USD.

Project Proposal and Bill of Materials

The project proposal is meant to get you thinking about what you will do for your project early. It is graded on completion of all components. You will receive feedback from your TA in lab if necessary and finalize your implementation goals with them then. Your implementation goals will be part of your grading criteria for the demo/verification.

Your proposal and BOM should be formatted as follows:

1. Description (2 points)
   • a description of the product you intend to prototype
2. Design
   1. Functional Specification (2 points)
      • a state machine diagram and written description of the high-level behavior of your product
   2. System Architecture (2 points)
      • an architectural block diagram and written description of how each component or service will fit together in the system
3. Implementation Goals (2 points)
   • a set of minimal, target, and stretch goals for prototype implementation
4. Bill of Materials (2 points)
   • a list of all anticipated materials and components for the prototype, their cost, and where they can be obtained.

The proposal should be at least 1 page and no more than 2 pages (excluding the BOM).

Note: Your score out of 10 on the proposal will be scaled to 5% as described in the overview.

Live Demonstration and Verification

During their last lab section of the quarter, all groups will present their prototypes live for verification and judging for the best project award.

Prototypes will be graded based on functionality, complexity, and aesthetics/production quality, which are tied to the implementation goals that were established.

Scores will be assigned according to the following rubric with some variation within the bins.

Project Deliverables

In-class Presentation

During the last 2 (extended) lectures, each group will give a short, 4-min presentation of their project on zoom which should cover the following:

• Description of the Project Objectives (1 slide - 2 points)
  • quick description of your project
    • e.g. "we are designing ___ with features ___ "
  • similar existing products and notable differences from your proposal
    • e.g. "some existing similar products are ___ . our's is different because ___ "
• Block diagram of tasks or modules, and their logical relationships (1-2 slide(s) - 4 point)
  • Breakdown the objective into smaller tasks or modules; visualize their dependency and/or data or control flow among them
  • Use color coding to show the team member leading the work on each task
• Progress report (1-2 slide(s) - 4 point)
  • Status of all tasks (completed, in-progress, planned, etc.)
    • For in-progress or future tasks, give a sense of expected timeline to finish & integrate.
  • A very short (partial) demo video to give a sense of completed tasks

Each of the above requirements will be graded on 2 criteria:

• Clarity: the presentation is clear and understandable
• Quality: the content is professional and well-organized

Because we have many presentations that we need to get through and a total of 2 hours for all ~45 groups to present, out of respect for your fellow classmates, presentations will be hard-capped at 4 minutes. If you are unable to cover all the content requirements, any requirements not discussed at all will receive a 0. The discussion of each requirement does not need to be done in-depth, so long as it conveys the major points (don't spend time on implementation details or thought process, simply report the results or final decisions).

Please practice your presentation beforehand to ensure that you are within the time limit.

Note: Presentation score will be weighted to be worth a total of 7.5 points relative to the entire final project grade out of 100.

Written Final Report

The final project report should thoroughly document your project and provide enough information that your project can be reproduced. You should write your report with the intention of putting your project on your resume, something you can send to people if they ask!

You should format the report as follows:

1. Description (0.5 point)
   • a thorough description of the product you have prototyped
2. Design
   1. Functional Specification (2.5 points)
      • a state machine diagram and written description of the high-level behavior of your product
   2. System Architecture (2.5 points)
      • an architectural block diagram and written description of how each component or service will fit together in the system
3. Implementation (5 points)
   • details of how each major block in the system architecture was implemented in hardware and/or software
   • this section should contain enough conceptual detail that your project could be reproduced by a fellow student without access to your source code
   • a circuit schematic, while not necessary, is recommended.
4. Challenges (2 points)
   • discussion of challenges that were faced during implementation and the observations, thought process, and steps taken to successfully (or unsuccessfully) solve them
5. Future Work (0.5 point)
   • discussion of additional features that you would have liked to add, or things you would change about the current implementation to improve efficiency/performance, etc.
6. Bill of Materials (2 points)
   • a final list of materials and components needed for the prototype, their cost, and where they can be obtained

When grading, we will pay particular attention to the Design section (thorough documentation of your prototype) and Implementation section (reproducibility of your prototype).

Project Webpage and Video Demo

The project web page will be graded based on the following:

1. [2.5 pts] Project Description
   • a thorough description of your project (essentially the same content as your written report)
     • this should emphasize documentation and reproducibility
2. [2.5 pts] Video Demo
   • a video recording of your final project demonstration which showcases each feature of your project
3. [2.5 pts] Aesthetics
   • the project page should look at least as nice as the course instructions.