Words of Wisdom
·
Decide
on your design as early as you can, and spend enough time working on it that it
is good enough to stick to.
·
Prototype
anything that will be mechanically complex early and make sure it will work
reliably.
·
The
project is too big for everyone to do everything together. Split up the responsibilities, but make sure
you get together often to make sure you are on the same page for everything, or
interfacing different parts will be a headache.
·
Be
very aware of how many C32 pins you need for each subsystem, so you know early
if you need shift registers or multiplexers.
·
It
helps to build a foamcore board with all of your sensors and actuators on it to
help you debug the software (you can give it real inputs and see the
results). Once the software is good, you
can mount all of the parts on your actual project.
·
Use
breadboards as much as you need. They
seem expensive, but saving a couple hours of soldering is easily worth the $6
breadboard.
·
Integration
of all your subsystems will take longer than you expect.
·
Prototype
your electronics as one whole system as soon as you can. This will help with integration problems.
·
Buy
more wire and Molex than you think you need, especially if the TAs aren’t going
to be in for a while.
·
Buy
a pair of tweezers to help with plugging things into tight spaces. Consider investing in your own pair of wire
strippers
·
If
you need to twist/untwist wires, you can trap one end in the chuck of a drill
and run it to twist them quickly.
·
Molex
all the wires and label them
·
Is
your power supply ON?
·
When
writing documentation, start in html.