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Project Milestones

On this page you will find detailed sections highlighting the work done by the team each week of this project

Week 3

Project Formation - Established communications through messenger and created a repository location in google drive. In person introductions at first tutorial and small ice breaking to get to know everyone, what they major in and interests.
Created Repository - Established some folders and rough structure within the repository.

Handover Documentation - Read previous years handover documents to understand the outcomes of their projects and how our team should scope our project for the year.
Concept of Operations (ConOp) - Started on ConOps documentation, setting a rough structure and set tasks for each member in relation to Audit 1

First Client Meeting - First meeting with our Clients on Friday, established lots of background on the project but failed to get a scope from the clients

Week 4

Finalised Initial Repo - After reading through all the deliverables and understanding the teams milestones and outcomes, we established a structure version 1.0 that we believe will be suitable for the duration of the projects life.

Landing Page - Created this landing page for the Monday 9am deadline, making it easy for stakeholders to reach relevant sources of information, especially the teams repository.

Team Meeting - Lots of team communication through formal and informal channels. Established meeting times and availability schedule. Conducted an internal meeting on 13/03 from 8pm to 10pm to run through presentation and audit deliverables.

Presentation and Tutorial Work - Finalised sections for presentation

Presentation/Tutorial Feedback:

  • After completing our presentation, the main points of feedback were the lack of team roles and processes. Need for a timeline/Gantt chart which was not shown in the presentation. Stakeholders, risks, and governance were good.

  • Team met after tutorial and set actions and dates for each member in completing the ConOps.

Week 5

Audit 1 Feedback - Received feedback from Audit 1 of the Capstone Project, had a meeting to read through and assign work related to feedback

Presented Project Status - Some potential risks to most factors due to late stakeholder engagement in the project early on

 Began Initial Research Direction - Had team meetings to establish initial research direction

Week 6

Audit 1 Feedback Management - Team used the week before to set the feedback from audit 1 into a document and in this week actioned on that feedback

Stage 2 Research - Team started the second stage of the research in the project. Set research into suppressants and retardants currently in use or potential use in our project. Research also into Bushfire Physics and the first principles underlying the spread and ignition of catastrophic bushfires

Start on Requirement Analysis - Team began setting requirements for the project output based on initial research and meeting with clients

Week 7

Matt Plucinski Stakeholder Meeting - Matt is Mr. Bushfire at the CSIRO and a great tertiary stakeholder for the project. In this meeting the team asked Matt as many questions as he could handle about the project output he would like to see, how we can test and go about or research. Matt gave the team all his current research papers in the area of bushfires and presented us with a presentation outlining his work at the CSIRO to understand and prevent bushfires.

Week 8

Client Research Presentation - Over the mid semester break the team met with the clients to present the stage 2 research the team had conducted. The retardants list for refining and the main physics of bushfires was presented

Stakeholder Engagement - Team established links to many 3rd party stakeholders relevant to project to further dial in requirements and outputs of the project

Initial Concept Design - A suggested initial concept design of a suppression device was introduced to the clients and the team received positive support for the initial design

Week 9

Mid Project Presentation - Team turned its direction towards preparing for the mid project presentation in week 10, establishing a plan, script, and overall approach

Deb Sparks Stakeholder Meeting - Team met with Deb Sparks from AFAC to finalise the requirements and outputs for the project before delving into analysis and design criteria needed for the design and testing stage of the project.

Week 10

Preparation for Mid Project Presentation - The team collated everyone's speeches into one document, with the addition of slide changes. The team practiced and memorised the procedure of the presentation to make sure it flowed and was within the time restrictions.

Client Feedback - The team presented the mid project presentation to the clients for feedback and changes. This was done the day before the presentation day. The clients helped the team refine the presentation with slide changes and addition of value proposition.

Presentation - The team presented to the tutors and other teams. A copy of the presentation can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/3ct4sa6c 

Audit 2 Prep - Team met and discussed last work to be done for Audit 2

Week 11

Feedback from Presentation - The team reconvened after the mid project presentation to understand how we did. Overall the team was happy with the work we put into the presentation and were slightly disappointed with the result. Team added feedback from the presentation to the feedback register to action on towards audit 2

Audit 2 Preparation Meeting - The team met to make sure all tasks for audit 2 are known and designated to each other.

Landing Page, ConOps, Systems Engineering - The team undertook a lot of work on the 13th to reach the milestones and aims of the project by audit 2. Such as design criteria, requirements and other systems engineering documents.

Week 12

Audit Feedback - The team did not go to the tutorial in week 12 and instead decided to have a quick call to understand the feedback from audit 2.

Start of Sem 2 Week 1

Sem 2 Reintroduction - Team reconvened after the break to jumpstart the action needed to be done in semester 2 for the project. 

Testing Start - The team set a hard deadline to finish research and start testing as the start of semester 2. The team started preparation with testing outlines and documents.

Prototypes - The team started 3D printing and creating prototypes for testing.

Testing On Site - The team undertook testing at the ANU near the satellite dish. Images and videos of this can be found on the repo: HERE

Week 2

Test Report - The team after conducting the first preliminary testing found ways to improve the testing methods and made a report to understand all the outcomes of the testing. 

3D Prototype Changes - After testing the team thought of new ideas to improve further testing and came up with new concepts to test. These were added to the concept generation folder in the repo and amendments have been made to existing prototypes

Week 3

Feedback Completion - The team had feedback to still action on and the team made sure to designate all feedback ahead of audit 3

Testing Materials - Given the team's zero budget creating the designed testing setup has proven difficult with cutting accurate holes into the testing board for the cup grid. 

Team Audit Meeting - Team had a meeting ahead of audit 3 to assign tasks and make sure we have everything aligned for our milestones ahead of the audit.

Week 4

Audit Reviews - Team individually completed their audit reviews

Audit 3 - Team finished work for audit 3 milestones and project outcomes

Audit 3 Presentation - Team prepped for audit 3 tutorial presentation

Testing - Testing with new testing strategy and prototypes

Weather Delay - Team had testing on Saturday but weather delayed the testing to next week

Week 5

Feedback Review- The team reviewed feedback from audit 3, creating a plan and assigning actions for each member in the feedback register

Final Concept Screening - Team completed concept screening and evaluation for Final Design

Secondary Testing Data - Team evaluated and modelled data from secondary testing

Design Adjustments - Testing highlighted need to adjust design

Week 6

Final Design Iteration 1 - The team agreed on a final design concept to progress after the secondary testing. The team went with the Pogo-stick design.

Final Testing - First final design testing using slow motion capturing of the spray radius and drop conducted and recorded.

Mid Sem

Team Meetings - The team met once a week to test during the mid semester break.

TPM Testing - The final design TPM testing was conducted with 3 test to verify 2 TPMs each, the team managed to complete 2 of these TPM tests.

Data from Final Design Iteration 1 Testing - Team analysed the data from the first round of final testing

Week 7

Decision on Final Project Output - Team has decided with the progress of final design testing the output will be the proof of concept final product that works.

Deadline for Testing - Original hard deadline for final testing pushed back to next week due to delays from weather and design failures.

Incorporated Slow Motion Camera for Testing - To better understand the fluid flow, spray radius and velocity of the payload the use of a DSLR camera recording in slow motion has been used.

Week 8

Final Design Completed - Final design completed and the Final TPM test need to be completed to fully verify the design

Client Presentation - The team presented to the clients on the work done over the break, the testing conducted and the results, as well as the plan for the rest of the project

Pitch and Poster - Start planning the pitch and poster with the team, designating roles for the completion of these tasks before the showcase

Week 9

Showcase Prep - The team discussed the plan for the showcase, including the work on the pitch and poster and the overall layout and ideas for the showcase.

Inclass Ptich Presentation - 3 teams in the tutorial presented their draft pitch to each other to get feedback

Finalised Poster and Pitch - The team finalised and submitted the pitch and poster for the showcase

Client Presentation - The team formally presented the final design and testing to the client ahead of the showcase and described the overall project output and showcase prep

Week 10

Pitch and Plan - The team made sure the pitch and plan for the showcase night was all discussed and understood

Project Showcase - This night all capstone teams presented their projects, and gave a pitch to staff, students, and industry representatives. The team displayed information on all our concepts and displayed their prototypes. The team presented our final design and testing structure.

Audit 4 Prep - Team met and discussed the plan and organised any remaining work needed for the audit.

Week 11

Audit 4 - This week was the last Audit opens

Project Outputs - Team organised project output documentation, including a manual and design specifications for the Pogo-Stick

Handover - The team continued work and mostly finished the Capstones handover documentation for future work on this project.

Audit 4 presentation - The team presented the audit 4 work in the tutorial.

Final Team Review - The team turned its attention to the final team review, designating sections to each member to write and gather evidence for.

Week 12

Final Week - The final week of the Capstone Project, the team finishes any feedback from audit 4

Handover - The team finalises the handover documentation for the whole capstone project.

​Final Client Presentation - The team presents the whole project to the client and the handover information

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