THE DESIGN SPECIFICATION For the better part of a semester you have been gathering information and you are now roughly half way through your project. You will have made key decisions and choices between various options to implement the requirements you put forward in your Requirements Analysis. The design document specification encompasses the conclusions you have made, the design choices and sets out exactly how you will go about achieving the end goals specified in your Requirements Analysis. Depending on your project type, this may include schematics, required parts, calculations on power consumption etc, as well as a carefully considered time line detailing your expected progress. For a research project, this may include experimental methodology, supporting theory or developed programming code. When your supervisor and second examiner look at your design document, they need to be convinced that you understand your project, that you have done a significant amount of work on your project and that you are capable of completing the project in a timely manner by the end of Project B. It’s important that you review the management and design lecture material from ECE3091 as much of what you need to do was covered there. WHAT WOULD YOU INCLUDE IN YOUR DESIGN SPECIFIC ATION? While many attributes of a project specification are common to all things you could possibly find yourself doing in an undergraduate project, there will be obvious differences. But a design specification details how you are going to implement the Requirements Analysis, with what materials, which suppliers and when. It will incorporate drawings of your design, schematic diagrams, experiment designs, equipment lists, costings and a detailed timing chart. Since your project has probably changed or been modified during the last 12 weeks, it would be a good idea to include a revised Risk Analysis, encompassing any changes that have occurred, showing you have considered the safety of your project. You might consider some or all of the following and where necessary use them as approximate headings: • What will the power supply be? 240V, 12V DC, mains powered or standalone? • What will the power consumption be? If your device is battery powered how long will you need it to operate? And if so is your power supply appropriate. You will no doubt be asked to justify your decision... • What computing power will you need? Will a desktop PC running matlab suffice? If so, what version of Matlab, what toolboxes do you need? How long will it take to run a simulation and therefore will you have enough time to complete the requirements? • If you are using a microprocessor what kind will you be using? How much memory will you need to implement your software and all of the data? Have you accounted for all of the I/O requirements? Have you allowed for future expansion or modification of your design? Do you have the programming tools necessary? What diagnostic tools will you be using? • Does your project have any ethical requirements? Will you be using living subjects? Your experiment specification needs to consider ethical and legal considerations. • What sensors will your project be using? What are their specifications? You will no doubt be asked if they are suitable for the purpose you intend and you should know the answer. • Will you be using motors? What sort? Stepper DC? Some exotic variant? Why did you select the motors you did? Will they be suitable for the purpose? How will you drive these motors? Have you done a costing of the drive chain? Will you need a gearbox? Will your drive system be capable of performing the necessary motions described in your requirements analysis? Why?
