Blog Posts
That’s all, folks!
On 4/25, we had our Final Design Review (FDR) event for our sponsor, IPPD, and for the general public to attend. It was a great success and we thank everyone that was able to come out!
With that, we mark the end of our time with the IPPD program. It feels like only yesterday that we started! We will miss everyone that was part of our journey to a successful project.
Special thank-you to Shridhar Nath, Nick Wayne, and Van Culver (NextEra Energy Resources), Dr. Shuo Wang (UF), and Lizzie Meier, Kiernan Sanders, and Dr. Edward Latorre (UF IPPD).
Until we cross paths again!
– Team ROCCstart (Tom Rice-Bladykas, Quinton Wiebe, Jack Carmody, and Kayla Woods)
Haha, secret message!
Poster Board and Video!
This week the team finished up their design for the final project poster board! Additionally, a final draft of a video summary of the project was also completed. The team looks forward to the Final Design Report Event as they finish up their presentations and minor details of the project to best showcase all their hard work. We hope to see many of you at the event next Tuesday (April 25) at 4:30 PM in the Reitz Union!
Post On-site Visit
Last Thursday and Friday, months of meetings, designs, burnt pcbs, and lines of code paid off as we officially tested our prototype on-site at NextEra. This week, we have begun building up documentation on the mechanical, electrical, and software aspects of the project so that the product handoff in two weeks will be as flawless as possible. Yesterday was the last bi-weekly liaison meeting; those chances to catchup and interact with the NextEra team will be missed. Currently, a poster and two-minute promotional video are in the works; stay tuned for those in the weeks to come!
NextEra Energy Visit and Presentation!
The team finished their presentation to NextEra’s executives today! After much preparation, we are excited to say that it was a success. In addition, we spent a lot of time with environmental and MODBUS testing, all of which were a success! We met and had the chance to network with a lot of employees, all while learning so much in the testing process. Below are some pictures that were taken during this endeavor.
The team learned a lot during this journey, and we are excited to wrap up our project these next couple weeks! We will be putting together a final report, final video, and final poster for this device! Stay tuned!
Prototype Inspection Day!
This week we had our Prototype Inspection Day! We spent a lot of time discussing what would be done for our demonstration, and we decided to show off what our device could do by 3D-printing a wind turbine with a simple motor, and using our device to turn the wind turbine off/on. In particular, we showed an example where, when the temperature reached a certain high degree, the turbine would turn off automatically.
In addition, we showed off all the electrical, mechanical, and software components in a presentation and talked about our testing that was done and our plans. We received a lot of valuable feedback about our presentation skills and testing plan that will be utilized.
In the meantime, we are preparing to depart to Juno Beach, FL next week to NextEra Energy’s new facility! We will be presenting to executives and engineers of the company. Much to do, but we look forward to it!
It’s alive!
This week, we performed more testing and programming on our prototype PCBs and modules. We were able to confirm the functionality of Ethernet, Solid-State Relay, and RTD modules. Here, Quinton and Tom are testing the temperature reporting capabilities by immersing an RTD in cold water and measuring the resulting temperature output. You can see the test was a resounding success!
Steady progress also continues on our logistics for the upcoming weeks. The team is hard at work on deliverables for IPPD, including the Final Design Report, the product video, user manual, and more.
Until next week!
Spring Break Preparations
This week the team continued to make progress on both the software and mechanical side of the project. With the CAD model now finally finished, the prototype enclosure can finally be 3D printed. Additionally, the testing and verification plans continued to be developed and the team also began brainstorming ideas for the final presentation of the project.
The team hopes to build on the progress made on documentation and the presentation over next week’s spring break and finish the prototype once they all return from break.
QRB2
This week at ROCCstart we had our second Qualification Review Board. In this round of review, as we expected, the primary feedback revolved around the hangups with the software side and better development of our physical testing plans.
As we move forward over the few weeks before our on-site test day with NextEra in April, we will be hunkering down on the software ensuring all the functionality meets the requirements and cranking out official documentation regarding our design choices, instructions for use, and test methods and results.
On Track
The team continues their work on the circuit board assemblies and have put it through a variety of testing which were all a success (one of which shown below after much trial and error)! With the Electrical Engineering portion of the project almost done, we now turn to the Mechanical Engineering and the Software aspects. The respective team members have been hard at work with their duties, with the completion of the CAD model and now starting to 3D print and with the communication of the device.
The team now prepares for Qualification Review Board 2, where we will discuss testing for our device and our progress so far!