Learning Project Management

Step 1.

My reasons to learn project management is because my entire future will be based off of projects and I will be doing lots of them so it is worth my time to invest and learn how to do them correctly and efficiently.  This topic will help motivate me to work on projects instead of stress out over them.  I won’t be stressing out because I will know what to do, and how to do it so my project is successful and done on time and on budget.

Step 2.

Basically Project management is a process that one goes through in order to reach their final goal in the easiest and most practical way while not letting your project fail.

The Main concepts are Complexity; which states that all projects are difficult and we have to avoid trying to make a project that is step by step, instead we have to learn to deal with how it goes.  Next is Decomposition; this is where you break down the problems at hand into ones that are easier to manage and accomplish.  Next is Task; this is where the project is broken up and everyone involves figures out which part they will call their own and solve subparts of this are the WBS which explains what each person is working on, and the Gantt Chart which shows how tasks work with each other to reach the goal.  Next is milestone, this is where major parts that get you to your final product are accomplished.  Lastly is the Execution, a process of doing useful things leading to the goal.

Step 3.

I am using PM currently in the final project for ME223 as well as working on studying for finals.  Both relate in that I am working on little parts at a time so I don’t get overwhelmed trying to do or learn everything at the end.  This way is easier for my because when working on the project I get parts done and slowly work to seeing the final product which the little successes help make me feel good and wanting to do more.  With the studying I learn and get down the concepts I need to know without as much confusion.

Step 4.

I repeated this process until I felt comfortable with my knowledge, or until the project was done.  As of the time of posting this, the project is still going on and we are making good progress.  Everyone has a task and we meet up and combine what we have every so often and then continue with more work.  With my studying I will continue doing this until each of my finals is over with.

Deliverables

Deliverable #1. See Step 3,4

Deliverable #2. I learned that not all projects are linear and that I should go with the flow more, I also learned that nothing can be solved or finished overnight let alone a 2 hour period, lastly I learned that many projects fail and if we don’t take the time to see if ours is good, it is likely that we are wasting out time.

Deliverable #3. I learned that it takes a lot of effort to learn something, That one is never done learning and you never know where your next piece of knowledge will come from, and lastly I learned that even though it seems longer to break up projects, it actually gets done faster because you are not stressing yourself out.

 

Arduino Challenge Problem

Problem Statement
Use an arduino to operate a Servo by moving it back and forth.

This skill is very important to Engineers because so far in this class we have not worked with Servo's, but it is a skill we should know how to do and there is lots of info online for how to do this.  I am keeping the task simple since it is a new concept that we should learn.

Key Facts

Power

Connect the red from servo to +5V on arduino.

Ground

Connect black/brown from servo to Gnd on arduino.

Signal

Connect white/orange from servo to Analog in 0 on arduino.


Solution (Physical World)A working moving servo.

Code
#include <Servo.h>

Servo servo1; Servo servo2;


void setup() {

  pinMode(1,OUTPUT);
  servo1.attach(14); //analog pin 0
  //servo1.setMaximumPulse(2000);
  //servo1.setMinimumPulse(700);

  servo2.attach(15); //analog pin 1
  Serial.begin(19200);
  Serial.println("Ready");

}

void loop() {

  static int v = 0;

  if ( Serial.available()) {
    char ch = Serial.read();

    switch(ch) {
      case '0'...'9':
        v = v * 10 + ch - '0';
        break;
      case 's':
        servo1.write(v);
        v = 0;
        break;
      case 'w':
        servo2.write(v);
        v = 0;
        break;
      case 'd':
        servo2.detach();
        break;
      case 'a':
        servo2.attach(15);
        break;
    }
  }

  Servo::refresh();

}

Problem Documentation

Author: Chris Jerue

Date: 11/14/12

Growing My Performance in Collaboration

Defensive Reasoning

While people are in the process of learning many of us run into a wall. They reach a point where they think that others peoples advice is negative criticism and they think that others are judging them and this limits their ability to grow and use that information for good and become better. Having the ability to except someone else's criticism is vital to learning. Learning from others is one of the best ways to gain new knowledge and learn other consumer’s views. Many others go into defensive reason when they begin to struggle because they are not open minded to others.

 Defensive reasoning has some noticeable signs. First people will act negatively and resort to anger as they go against what others say. Next if you point out that they are defensive they will deny aggressively and/ or evade the topic. Finally they will blame their struggles on others or on the task itself. They will fall short of using high order thinking as their primary order of thought.

Defensive reasoning causes growth issues and growth is important to learning and enjoyment. Using defensive reasoning can stop this growth because it stops input from other. While input from others is one of the best ways to grow. Their knowledge can bring new insights to troubles that are at hand as well as an idea of what other people want out of your product. To get passed this one must learn to separate the perceived negative criticism as helpful and constructive advice. This is a biological process.

To overcome this problem one must first recognize the issue as a biological problem that must be overcome. They must then accept the emotions and learn to let them pass. And finally apply the SII method to improve.

 

SII Method

1.Define your strengths - define the most beneficial strengths, in order of most beneficial, be specific and  truthful

 2.Decide on improvements - Identify some areas of improvement, be thorough and specific.

 3.Look for insights on the problem - look for insights that are not know to yourself.

 

Example of SII

 1.Strengths

 •Value others input

 •I work hard on finding out what other people’s opinions are.

 •Working in a team I try to make sure everyone who has an idea is able to share and explain it before judgment.

 •I always do my part

 •I also try to make sure everyone else is doing their part and on track.

 

 2.Improvements

 •The ability to trusting others

 •I have issues with trusting others to do their part, and I try to make sure everyone gets their stuff done early so I have time to look it over and submit it myself.  I can improve this by sharing the load with others, giving them a chance to succeed, make adjustments as necessary.

 •I am also not one to take risks so I am working on being open to more ideas and to be creative while not being afraid to try; trying is part of learning and the group experience. If you do not succeed then you learn what works and what does not.

 

 3.Insights

 •There are seven deadly and seven beneficial habits to teamwork. Good (Supporting, encouraging, listening, accepting, trusting, respecting, negotiating) Bad (Criticizing, blaming complaining, nagging, threatening , punishing, bribing) Using the good techniques can improve anybody's collaborative abilities, using bad ones can hurt the teamwork experience.

Thermal Mug Design Project

The idea behind this project was to create a mug design that would cool drinks down to a nice enjoyable temperature.  We worked in a team of 4 students with a time span of roughly two weeks.

To do this we ran tests to see how a normal frozen glass mug would work for this and then brainstormed how we could improve that.

In order to test a normal glass mug we had to work on crating a math model to tell us what the final temperature should be using MATLAB, and then we also programmed an Arduino to read the temperature of the liquid.

Here is a video of what we did for testing our glass mug:

 

Below is our Arduino Set up for reading the temperature and displaying it in the LCD in both degrees C and F.

Here is our experiment set up: As you can see our data is not the best because we are not in a closed system although the jacket does help with insulation.

(Note: When I learn how to add documents I will add out Matlab and Arduino Codes as well as further information)

Gaylene Anderson Talk

This talk was very interesting and contained a lot of helpful information I hope to remember and use if I need to.

To begin with, I feel that knowing how to make a patent and the steps to go through in order to make one was very important to learn since as students we are working on projects and who knows if we might just design the next best thing and in return we might want to or need to protect our ideas in order to make money off of them.  A part of the patenting process I thought was also good to know is the concept of liscencing out product which is where other companies pay us to use our idea.  I feel that this would be a cool route to go through if I was to design a product.

I also am glad she talked about the importance of documenting everything and creating Confidentiality agreements.  I knew that if you are to talk about something that could make you or someone a lot of money, odds are people are going to try to steel the idea, and I was also not aware of the time frame you have to work with once you talk about your product before you are out of luck patenting it.  No instead of making someone sign something because you dont trust them to not steel your idea, you can say you have to do that in order to legally patent it.  This could be useful during our entire careers as Mechancial Engineers if we ever design something worthwhile.

Also lastly, something very worthwhile while a student at the University would be to patent a cool item that consumers would want because while you are a student and if it relates to your field of study, or if you did it while working with school items and proffs then you can go through the school to get your item patented.  This is very worthwhile since you dont have to pay the patent fee's or go through the hassels of submitting everything since the office Gaylene works in will take care of it for you.  In the end you still make plenty of money off of it, 40%, another 40% goes to her office so they can pay to submit more patents and such, and the last 20% goes to your college to help them out with more research.

This was a very great presentation and I learned a lot that I hope to be able to use someday.

Designing an Experiment

What is Experiment Design?

Experimental design is the process of creating, building, analyzing and then repeating until you have the design you like and works.  This process should be used when doing any experiment.  Experiment design uses what we know about the scientific method by making us search for data and results.


Why do Experiment design?

-Search for results
-Find Data to help your design
-Produces fun hands on work
-Helps you learn valuable skills
-Helps you grow as a problem solver


Steps for successful experiments:

1. Define your experiment
2. Learn new knowledge by researching
3. State a hypothesis to look for information on
4. Design before doing: State your goals, make ideas, set assumptions, narrow down to best ideas, work on making those ideas better.
5. Execute the plan and search for data
6. Record and document everything
7. Look back on your results, reflect on what you did and found
8. Repeat your process


Science versus Alchemy:

Science is based more on facts and data where as alchemy is based more on emotions and ideas, but it can still be related to science.  Many people have trouble changing their ideas even when there is scientific evidence stating a fact because of this it is hard for people to not rely on their own views and listen to science.  This is because emotions are some of the strongest feelings that the human mind can focus on so many times it is what drives people.

Believe in science because science can lead and has lead to many great discovers that has helped numberous people.  This is one of the few ways to really find truth and understand how things work so we can evolve and create better items to help us.


Examples of the scientific method:

1. When I am trying to learn a new skill such as solving differential equation problems, I can test myself with people who already know and are good at differential equations.  If they can follow my work through a problem then that means I have been learning since I am doing it correctly, thus proving that I am learning.  Then when I am able to teach what I have learned to someone else, that makes myself even more fluent and ensures that I have the concepts down.

2. When designing a product with a team, the group can generate ideas and togather work down to one or two we like which we can then work on prototyping.  After prototyping we can test the designs to see which one would be the best to go further with.  This way we take our emotions and views out of the equation and rely on only what the facts tell us.

3. When building a math model we start simple and work our way up while testing little parts experimentally as we go.  If we get results that are close to what we should be getting, then we can confirm that our math model is on the right track.  If there are errors, we know we need to look back and find them, and it is easier to find errors and work on a small model than working it till the end and having an error.

My Thermal Mug Math Model

My approach for this problem was to start simple and work my way up to what I am actually solving and working to get.  In this case, making my math model for the Thermal Mug project, I started with some scientific concepts and laws and then worked on deriving an algebraic equation for the equilibrium temperature in the mug after the warm liquid was put inside the cold mug.  To do this I set up my MATLAB Math Model with functions of relevant variables such as initial temperature, heat capacity of water, the mug material, mass values, etc.


My Math Model:

My math model models the temperature change of a chilled mug cooling a room temperature liquid or beverage. 

I used results found online for the specific heat capacities of the glass and the water as well as normal temperatures for rooms and freezers:
Glass: 0.84 [KJ/(kg*K)] = cg
Water: 4.18 [KJ/(kg*K)] = cl
Temp of frozen mug: -13 C
Temp of room temp water: 25 C

Assumptions:
-No work on system
-No loss of temperature to air

State one: Cold mug and warm liquid
State two: Equilibrium state

Goal: Find the temperature at state two

Equations:
deltaE=mc deltaT
deltaE=0 so deltaEmug=deltaEwater

deltaEmug= (mglass)(cglass) (T2-Tmug)
deltaEwater= (mglass)(cglass) (Twater-T2)

so: (mglass)(cglass) (T2-Tmug) = (mglass)(cglass) (Twater-T2)
Solve for T2 to get T2= ((mwater)(cwater)(Twater)+(mglass)(cglass)(Tmug))/((mglass)(cglass)+(mwater)(cwater))

Then checking units reveals the answer in Kelvins which works.



My MATLAB model:

thermalmug.m

% thermalmug.m calculates the final temperature of a liquid in a chilled

% glass. This is only correct for an an idealized case where there is no

% loss of temperature to the surrounding air.

 

clear

cg= .84; % Specific heat capacity of glass [KJ/(kg*K)]

cl= 4.18; % Specific heat capacity of water [KJ/(kg*K)]

 

Tmug= -13; % Temperature of mug [Celcius]

Tliq= 25; % Temperature of water [Celcius]

mg= .5 % Mass of a glass mug

ml= .25; % Mass of water

Tm= Tmug + 273.15; % Mug temp in [kelvin]

Tl= Tliq + 273.15; % Water temp in [kelvin]

 

% Temperature of water at equilibrium in [kelvin]

T2 = (ml*cl*Tl + mg*cg*Tm)/(mg*cg + ml*cl);

TempC = T2 - 273.15 %Final Celcius

TempF = TempC*1.8+32 %Final Fahrenheit

The results:

TempC = 14.1058 C

TempF = 57.3904 F

 

As you can see this would be a reasonable drinking temperature, not a cold as I would like, but it makes sense that just freezing a glass mug and adding a warm liquid, the temperature would still be closer to that of the intitial liquid than being closer to freezing.