174 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
174 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
\documentclass{article}
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\begin{document}
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\title{Weekly Blog}
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\author{Danila Fedorin}
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\date{November 16, 2020}
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\maketitle
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\section{Week 3}
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\subsection{Progress}
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There has been great progress in our group. We agreed to do one assignment
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for the Senior Capstone class a day, and have been following through with
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this plan. This way, we have initial drafts of every assignment very early
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on, and have a lot of time to review and edit them. In essense, we have
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a clear understanding of the project goals, initial drafts of many
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of the required documents that we have so far, and a good division
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of labor.
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\subsection{Problems}
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There have been no real problems with the team regarding the project.
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We did receive unexpected grades on certain individual assignments
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(seemingly indicating an inconsistent grading scheme), but
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since members of the group have scored full points on an assignment,
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we have a clear idea of what the next iteration of our submissions will look like.
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\subsection{Plan}
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The plan is continue to finish one assignment per day for the project.
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This will keep us on track, while at the same time having enough time
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to peer review with each other and other groups. Since one of the group
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members is writing a thesis with our client, he currently has weekly
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meetings with the client, and serves as our team's point of contact.
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We plan to schedule a weekly or bi-weekly meeting with the client
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with the entire group to facilitate communication, and to continue
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to document the project as per the (already plentiful) information
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already provided by the client, and as per the standard senior
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capstone assignments.
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\section{Week 4}
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\subsection{Progress}
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As per our agreement, we've been steadily completing drafts of various assignments,
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though not one per day (such effort is difficult to sustain with other existing
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commitments). We have scheduled a meeting with our advisor to discuss the purchase
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of various hardware components, and we will soon have an idea of what parts
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we will need.
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\subsection{Problems}
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Like last week, there have been no problems in the group. A group member
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missed a meeting by accident (due to being double-booked with a job),
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though it did not inconvenience the other group members, and we believe
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no action is necessary. The private git repository in which we store
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our class LaTeX files is temporarily inaccessible due to internet
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issues, but this had virtually no impact on the team's work.
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\subsection{Plan}
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Although we've toned down our pace, we intend to continue tackling
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assignments ahead of time to stay on top of writing and proofreading.
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Additionally, as described in the progress section, we have scheduled
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a meeting with our advisor, and plan on purchasing components shortly
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after the meeting takes place.
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\section{Week 5}
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\subsection{Progress}
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We have constructed preliminary designs for the various nodes and gateways
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that we will have set up throughout fields. With this, we also determined
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the components that we may need for the project - after a little more
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discussion with our advisor, we will be able to proceed with the purchases.
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Additionally, we have contacted our advisor to schedule a weekly
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meeting, and are waiting on a response.
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\subsection{Problems}
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We are as yet unsure about the source of funding for the purchase of our
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hardware. We have contacted the TA, and are waiting for more information.
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No other issues have come up.
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\subsection{Plan}
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The plan is to continue doing the class assignments, while at the same
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time doing additional research into the hardware components and mechanics
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of our project. We will stick with the prescribed class schedule otherwise,
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and continue to do some work on an assignment every day. The next
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assignment up is the first draft of the tech review.
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\section{Week 6}
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\subsection{Progress}
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Our first meeting with the client took place, and we had a good chance
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to discuss the expectations for the project, as well as future meeting
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schedules. We agreed on biweekly meetings from now on, however, since
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every member of the team (and the client!) has very packed schedules,
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these meetings are not required if progress can be made without them.
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By virtue of the team's work on the tech review, we have a much
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clearer understanding of the details of the project, and we're at
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this point only limited by access to funding.
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\subsection{Problems}
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The client has a very busy schedule, and our last meeting was actually
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moved and scheduled last-minuted. Though it seems like we're on
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the same frequency, so to speak, the lack of availability is somewhat
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unnerving.
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\subsection{Plan}
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The immediate plan is to secure funding and start working on prototyping.
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This will help us quickly discover flaws in our project and interate on
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the design. We will continue our ambitious attempt to stay ahead of writing
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assginments.
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\section{Week 7}
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\subsection{Progress}
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With the completion of the design document, the team has a good idea of
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what we're going to be doing, and who will be doing what. Given our last
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interaction with the client, we believe the design document closely
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represents what he would want, and thus, we are expecting no
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issues with getting the design document signed off. The team has
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agreed to perform a significant refactor / rewrite of the design
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document to address the structure and improve compatibility with
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the IEEE standard. This will happen in time for the submission
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of the second draft of the design document.
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\subsection{Problems}
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There are no problems in the way of our group at present, other than
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the question of funding. Since we are still iterating on the design,
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this question does not block us from making progress.
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\subsection{Plan}
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As mentioned in the progress section, the team intends to significantly
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alter the structure (not the content) of the design document as we
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currently have it. Other than that, there are no new plans since
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last week, other than completing other assignments required by
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CS461.
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\section{Week 8}
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\subsection{Progress}
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We finished the second draft of the design document this week. The rewrite
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we planned was performed as we expected, and our document was rewritten in
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IEEE1016-2009 format. This took a significant amount of time and work, but
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the project is described in almost all of its entirety: the technologies,
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requirements, and even the state machine of the fenceless collars
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have been specified and discussed. The only thing that remains is the
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addition of UML diagrams to the document
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\subsection{Problems}
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There are no problems this week. We are not blocked by anything other the
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funding (as we have been for the last few weeks). We are waiting to hear
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back from the TA, who told us they’d speak with professors regarding the
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funds allocated to our group by the Senior Capstone class.
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\subsection{Plan}
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The plan is to finish the Design Document by providing UML diagrams where
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appropriate, and by filling in sections marked as ”TODO” while writing it.
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Otherwise, we have no plans for the short term future.
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\section{Week 9}
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\subsection{Progress}
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No significant progress this week. We have sent our advisor
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all the required documents, including the Tech Review,
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the Design Document, and the Problem Statement, and are
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waiting to hear back. Personally, I also met with Dr. Winters
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to talk about my Tech Review, and was pointed to several
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flaws that I should fix.
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\subsection{Problems}
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We will soon be blocked by a lack of response about funding.
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Since we now have a good idea of what our design will be,
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once our advisor signs off on our document, we will be able to start
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making purchases. However, this is impossible without funds
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from CS461, since will not spend money out-of-pocket on this project.
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\subsection{Plan}
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The term is coming to an end; the main plan, at present, is
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to finish the last assignment that is due on Friday (the
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progress report), as well as to make any adjustments requested
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by our advisor to the other documents. Personally, I also
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plan on updating my Tech Review document to address
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the issues explained in my one-on-one meeting with Dr. Winters.
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\end{document}
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