CCHS GGHC: CCHS element14 group
Team moment of the week
Phew! What a crazy, fun-filled and tiring week it's been! And so many great moments too 
I'll pick a few to highlight.
The PCB's arrived! Straight after the Easter break, on Wednesday 27th April, the courier arrived and we were holding our sleek looking boards in our hot hands. We kind of felt like proud parents, and I guess it's true we're biased, but aren't these just the greatest looking bundles of joy?:
It's been frustrating having the hardware delay, but it was great to finally be able to jump into populating the first few boards and begin testing our prototype software. We proceeded to make up for lost time with a week of late nights and grabbing any spare moment we could find during our regular daily lives.
Progress this week
Project: Lots of movement on all fronts. Hardware assembly, software implementation, enclosure package layout and design, and documenting the project. We had a few parts we ordered from element14 that still haven't arrived, however they're not critical components (an SMT trimpot for the LCD contrast and some 102 caps).
Requirements: Our main requirements focus has been to review the enclosure layout for usability. We've settled on a first prototype layout that works, however we'd like to make further improvements to simplify the user experience. We've also refined the software requirements a little based on the feedback and learnings from working with the LCD prototype boards, and we have needed to flex a little from our original software requirements to reflect the compressed timeframes due to the delayed hardware arrival. .
Design: We're taking the initial outline software deisgn and itereating that through design --> build --> test cycles, working collaboratively using github. We've also taken a similar approach with the case layout work, running through design-->paper prototype-->walkthrough-->refine & adjust cycles.
Build: We got the first few Motherboards assembled, followed by the Daughter and Buttonboards. We have a nice framework running to handle the various "applets" that the lab will run, with a number of prototype applications running in test mode. We have also completed the front-panel artwork for the enclosure, and have begun the final work on the case to mark it up for drilling.
Plan & Schedule: We only have a couple of days left to go! Still lots to do, and we're all feeling under immense pressure. We've settled for a reduced set of functions from those we originally envisaged, but that simply reflects a reduced set of software: something that can be improved with updates after the competition.
Key Thoughts and Observations
We're finding we have too many concurrent threads to close out in the remaining days. We can see the end in sight, but there are a number of tasks to complete, none of which are particularly problematic by themselves, but leave uncertainty around the final product. We'll be working very hard to make the deadline, and feel confident we'll make it with a first alpha protype version of a product that has lots of real-world applicability and potential.
Here's a look at the enclosure artwork that team members Marc and Antoinette have been working on, and a first enclosure cut to suit
Next Steps and post-project activities
There are various activities we intend to investigate, including:
- Finish the basic application environment, with a couple of example applications
- Finish the enclosure cutting and assembly.
- Attch and tst the secret experiment we spoke about in an early blog post.
Spotlight: Surface-mount soldering
We had fun with help from our friends at Freetronics, doing a couple of solder mount assembly sessions. the first focused on getting the few boards poulated and ready for testing, the second a demonstration/ tutorial for the general hackerspace membership to be involvd in.
We used solder paste, an stereo microsope and a toaster oven to make some magic happen. It really isn't as hard as folks might think it is to do SMT work, and we'd strongly encourage everyone to give it a go and learn the requisite skills.
Well, one more post to go! See you soon!
Happy Hacking from the Connected Community HackerSpace (Melbourne)