This week, Team Watchdog traveled to the Florida Department of Transportation Gainesville Operations Center to present our Preliminary Design Review. It was wonderful to meet our liaison engineer, Lee Woodcock, in person for the first time. We presented our research findings, analysis of the current prototypes, and the design improvements we plan to accomplish. We received great feedback from FDOT road work experts and were informed of several additional factors our design must consider. We had a team meeting to review this feedback and came up with a revised project plan which addresses the feedback.

This week, team Watchdog worked hard to prepare a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) report and presentation. On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to present the PDR to some of our peers and coaches and receive feedback. Our peers thought the technical information was presented in an approachable and well organized manner. We have been practicing our presentation skills because some team members struggled to communicate clearly and confidently. On Wednesday, we had a meeting with Matthew Gutierrez, a member of the former Awearables team. He provided valuable information about the prototype his team developed last year, as well as challenges they faced and advice for how we should move forward with project development. It was exciting to see the Awearables prototype in action get a tour of its inner-workings.

On Saturday, our group attended the Six Sigma White Belt Quality Training presented by Florida Power & Light. Six Sigma is a set of techniques used by professionals to improve processes and enhance project performance. With the exception of Anushka, who was unable to attend, and Dylan, who already holds a Green Belt certification, the rest of our team is now White Belt certified.

On Sunday, we inventoried the materials and components left by the previous team. This gave us a clear list of what we currently have available for when we improve the prototypes. We also spent the meeting discussing our project roadmap and which parts are sticking points that may become issues as we work on the prototypes.

On Wednesday, our team met to discuss the PDR and began evaluating which aspects of our prototypes still require touch-ups, as well as which areas may need further improvement or redesign. We are currently developing our PDR drafts, which will be presented to our liaison engineers for review.

We will continue working on our PDR and have it done for our presentation in a couple of weeks.

This week was focused on getting our footing on the project, defining our requirements, and establishing our initial specifications. Over the weekend, we reviewed documents from the two teams last year to identify useful starting points and specifications to guide our work moving forward. On Thursday, we also developed a roadmap for our first semester based on the Product Design Specification (PDS) and insights we gathered through our research. Having this roadmap in place gives us a general structure to follow as we begin diving deeper into the project and turning our ideas into concrete goals. Additionally, we came up with our name, Watchdog. Below is our finalized logo that we have decided on.

---

We are Watchdog, an Integrated Product & Process Design team from the University of Florida working alongside the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). Building on last year’s Awearables and Road Response teams’ projects, our goal is to enhance and complete their projects while continuing to advance innovative safety solutions.

Our team includes 4 Computer Science Majors, 1 Mechanical Engineer, and 1 Industrial and Systems Engineer working under Dr. Lily Elefteriadou and our liaison engineers.

Our mission is to develop technology that creates a safer work environment for roadside workers by helping prevent accidents and protecting those who work alongside Florida’s roadways.

Our Team

---

Adrien Crater

---

Dylan Schneider

---

Vivian Rincon

---

Anushka Kapoor

---

Tanushree Hadavale

---

Hong Ouyang