FDR was an amazing way to close out the year. After working on SECURE for two semesters, it was nice to finally show the full system to people outside our usual circle. Most of the conversations were straightforward, walking through the workflows, explaining why we structured things the way we did, and answering questions about the choices we made along the way. It felt less like a pitch and more like showing the project for what it is.

Talking with our liaisons after the presentation helped put things in perspective. They focused on the practical side of the system: how the roles fit together, how the logging supports real use, and what parts would matter most once this gets handed off. It was useful to hear what stood out to them now that the project is basically wrapped.

Seeing the other teams’ work also made the day feel bigger than just our own project. Everyone had different goals and constraints, but we were all trying to build something functional by the end of the year. It was cool to see how each team approached that in their own way.

Now that FDR is done, the rest is cleanup, tightening documentation, smoothing out a few rough edges, and making sure the next group can pick up where we left off. It’s not the exciting part of the project, but it’s the part that makes the work hold up after we’re gone. Finishing this project made it clear how much we’ve changed since the fall, and it’s the kind of experience that will stick with us long after the last commit and the final presentation.

This week, we incorporated coach feedback and completed a full draft of the Final Design Report (FDR). We also participated in a peer-review FDR practice session, which gave us valuable insight into how to refine our presentation and better communicate our system. Below is a picture from our post–peer review FDR session.

On the technical side, we removed all online dependencies from the SECURE application in preparation for hand-off to RTX. Looking ahead, we will be finalizing our project poster and promotional video and continuing to practice and adjust our presentation based on feedback. Shown below is our current poster draft, which highlights SECURE’s features, system architecture, and usability results. We’re really excited to wrap everything up and present our work on the 21st!

This week we filmed the draft for our video. Pictured below are Joshua and Daniel, our two lead actors. The final draft of our video will be posted here in the coming weeks, so look forward to it!

As FDR approaches, we have focused on wrapping up development so we can focus on testing and drafting our documents. We have merged the last major features, namely email scheduling and account deactivation. The final things that we need are to set up offline dependencies, write up documentation, and write unit, integration, and end-to-end tests. Next week, we also have our PR FDR, so expect news about that in our next blog post.

The team has been hard at work this week adding functionality to the application and getting closer to completing our user stories. The user dashboard is getting closer to completion with the addition of file inspection and preview as can be seen below.

Progress has been made on the administrator dashboard as well, which involves the denial and approval of user documents. Individual assignments have been made for all sections and subsections of the upcoming Final Design Review volumes. Discussions have begun about what functionality should be ready to demonstrate at the approaching prototype inspection day, as well as concrete plans to achieve those goals. Once again, it has been a productive work where vision becomes reality. We are excited to share more as it is created!

This week we worked heavily on our backend infrastructure and deployment environment. All required SQL tables were created and verified, and our API is now running on the development VM inside The Hatchery with confirmed database connectivity. We also provisioned a second VM to support continued development and authentication testing and implemented a functional document upload endpoint that stores file metadata in the database.

We presented to the Qualitative Review Board this week and received valuable feedback. While our project goals and prototype were well received, the board encouraged us to accelerate implementation, refine our testing strategy, and begin user testing with simulated data to better demonstrate full system functionality.

Here’s a quick flick of Josh post QRB 2!

We received valuable feedback from the board and are feeling motivated as we move into the next phase of development. With our database deployed and API running it’s exciting to see the system coming together piece by piece.

Moving forward, we will focus on integrating all system components end-to-end, incorporating QRB recommendations, and continuing Active Directory authentication development. We remain on schedule and are transitioning into the enterprise integration phase of the project.

This week we made a lot of progress on both the back end and the front end. We got the API server running, accepting http requests, and connecting to the database. We also have the beginnings of a dashboard page, pictured below. Our next steps will be to implement authentication and set up the automated email service.

This upcoming Tuesday is our second presentation to the Qualitative Review Board, who will provide us with feedback regarding the state of our project. We feel prepared, and our project is in a good state, so we hope that it will go as smoothly as the first one.