The Prototype Inspection Day (PID) offered an enlightening opportunity to step back, witness for ourselves, and share with our peers and judges all that has been accomplished since Week 1. Going into PID our primary focus was on the physical (mechanical and electrical) aspects of the device, getting the judges feedback on questions such as: How can we make things as simple and usable for the NextEra operators during installation? What might be some failure modes we should consider further? How can we ensure greater reliability?

Fortunately, most of the judges assigned to us possess extensive experience in electrical engineering and were able to think deeply regarding the problem being solved by us at ROCCstart. As I – a software engineer – am beginning to learn, any conversation with an electrical engineer will find its steady-state on the topic of electrical noise and its causes. Unsurprisingly, the judge’s immediate reaction to mentioning the vibration filled environment of the wind turbine was a concern for the signals propagating through the wires towards and away from our device. After hearing these concerns for the second time (first was during the Preliminary Design Review with the liaisons and higher-ups at NextEra a few weeks back), we will absolutely make sure to include signal testing in our plan.

Besides the discussion of noise, the judges all seemed to thoroughly enjoy our presentation, especially the CAD renderings (shout-out to Tom)! One final piece of insight we found interesting involved the development of a business case for our device: how much will it actually save/make for NextEra? This is something we have discussed as a team briefly at the beginning of the project, but never fleshed out. Granted, a full business plan is not within the scope of our project – the NextEra liaisons have prioritized a functional device over all else – even still, getting some insight from the liaisons regarding the financial impact of our project may provide a greater incentive for our team and impetus for implementation by NextEra once we are done.