Project Management

In general, project management includes planning, organizing, leading and controlling

tasks, resources, time and costs to reach an agreed specific goal on time , within budget
and with appropriate quality. The advantages of having project management is to ensure a
single point of responsibility, the use of critical path method, the possibility to fast track
products and services, cost and schedule control, integration procedures and trend
analysis.

The Robot Maze Solver project consists of four electrical engineers. They are Merlin
Chai, Lim Wan Yin, Lai Tzin Chung and Terence Soo. The project management of this
project is broken down into 5 main stages:
1) Scope the project
2) Develop detailed plan
3) Implement the plan
4) Monitor/ control project progress
5) Close out project

The project information was given by the lecturer on the 29th of April 2009. He briefed us
on the goals and learning points of the project. Next, we formed into a group of four
members and submitted our group member list on the next day. This task is required to be
completed by 4pm Friday, 1st May. Once the group was formed, a meeting was held to
discuss how the project will be structured.

Scope the project

In the first meeting, the goals of the project were discussed among group members so that
everyone would have a clear direction on the next step of the product development
process. The aim of this Robot Maze Solver project is to design, construct and report a
line following maze solver. The specifications were discussed among team members to
identify the success criteria of the project. A list of possible challenges and problems
were made in order to determine which area should be focused on more.

Develop detail planning

After the first meeting, several decisions regarding the working principle and task
allocation of the projects were made:
 Members have to be committed to the allocated task and complete them
before the dateline. If there is any reason that they cannot complete their task
in time, they have to inform other members before the dateline.
 All members will communicate through emails. Also, whenever a member
sends out an email to another member, it is important that he/she carbon
copied it to other members. The reason for that is to ensure clear
communication between all members at all times.
 Group members were assigned tasks as below based on their expertise and
strength
 • Project management – Terence Soo
• Circuit design testing and PCB layout – Lim Wan Yin
• Software Development – Chai Merlin
• Hardware Assembly- Lai Tzin Chung
• Task that involve all members are circuit design and report write-up

It was expected that there would be overlaps between tasks and there were also tasks that
cannot start until the preceding tasks were completed. In order to solve this problem, MS
Project is used to create a Gantt Chart of the project timeline.

There were three datelines that had to be met and they were the major milestones of the
project. The milestones are represented by a diamond shape in Gantt Chart. The three
milestones are
• Submission group member list – 4pm Friday 1st May
• Submission of PCB layout –Wednesday 27th May
• Submission completed repor ,software and hardware – 20th July

The project planning was based on the dateline above so that tasks will be completed on
time. In general, the timeline in the Gantt Chart represents the duration in which each
task is completed. It does not represent the exact working hours of each member. The
reason for that is because, the members have other commitments and it will be difficult to
plan the number of hours spent on each task. From the Network Diagram, it is shown that
the critical path of the project is quite forward straight forward. It was decided that the
report write-up should be done simultaneously with hardware and software testing
because there was a high possibility that testing might take longer than expected. The
write-up might not be completed in time if it was done after the testing.

Implement the plan

Generally, Implementation phase can be broken down into five main stages.
• Circuit Design
1) Research on circuit design
2) Construct circuit
3) Test circuit and reconstruct circuit design
• PCB Layout
• Hardware Assembly
1) Drill holes on PCB
2) Solder components
3) Connect mechanical on PCB
• Software Development
• Hardware and Software Testing
The implementation stage can also be represented by the Work Breakdown Structure

Construction of
Robot Maze Solver

Circuit Design

PCB Layout

Hardware Assembly

Hardware and
Software Testing

In the circuit design stage, each member was allocated the task to research on the circuit
design of the robot maze solver. Next, the circuit design was testing by connecting the
components on a breadboard. Once the testing was completed, the PCB layout was
constructed using Altium. The completed PCB layout was then sent to Electronics
Workshop.

The next stage was hardware assembly. However, it could only start after the PCB was
returned to us. Software development was done simultaneously by another member of the
group in order to increase the working efficiency. After both software and hardware of
the project were completed, the code was loaded into the microprocessor and the robot
maze solver was tested on the sample maze.

Monitor/ Control Project

Monitoring and controlling the project was done simultaneously with the implementation
phase. It is important to apply concurrent product development in order to increase the
success rate of the project. Instead of reviewing the design process and product
development at the end of the project, it should be done concurrently. There is a slight
 changes in the actual timeline compared to the planned timeline. The software
development took longer than expected. Comparing the actual Gantt Chart and the
planned Gantt Chart, the actual duration of the software development is three days longer
than the expected duration. Actual duration of PCB layout is a day longer than the
expected duration. Overall, the important milestones and datelines were met on time.

Close out the project

The final part of the project was report write-up. It was decided by all the team members
that it was better to write the report during the software and testing phase. The reason for
that was to increase our work efficiency and also allow the members to document their
observations.

Project Management Cycle

Definition

1. Scope the project

-Establish the project goal
-Identifying spefication of the Planning
project and success criteria
-List assumptions, risks,
obstacles
2.Develop detailed planning using
Ms Project
-Identify project activities -Estimate
activity duration
-Determine resource requirements
Execution/Control -Construct/ analyse project
network diagram

3. Implement the plan

-Completing task according
sequence
4.Monitor/Control Project Progress
--Establish progress reporting system
using MS Project
-Define problem escalation process
-Monitor project progress vs plan
Delivery -Keep track team members on their
progress
5. Close out the project
-Report write-up
Execution/Control
Budget

The component budget is limited $20 for each group. The reason why there is budget to
projects is to allow the students experience working a project with a limitations. This is
because in real projects, there is always budget allocated excessively. Hence, if the
expenses of the project is higher that the budget, it will affect the financial status of the
company. Below is the budget list for the components used in constructing the robot
maze solver.

Name of the Quantity Cost of each Cost

Components quantity
Capacitor-NPO 1 $0.18 $0.18
Ceramic(22pF)
Polarized Capacitor - 1 $0.30 $0.30
Electrolytic(22uF)
Capacitor Ceramic 2 $0.15 $0.30
Multilayer
Monocap(0.1uF)
Capacitor – Film 1 $0.30 $0.30
(0.01uF)
6 way header-polarised 1 $0.40 $0.40

6 way socket 1 $0.28 $0.28

2 way header-polarised 3 $0. 15 $0.45

2 way socket 3 $0.10 $0.30

YY2CT Contacts 11 $0.04 $0.44
Tactile Switch B-1729 2 $0.40 $0.80

Hookup wire stranded 1.4m $0.25/m $0.35

-70cm of black and 70
cm of red

Resistor (10k Ω) 6 $0.04 $0.24

Resistor (330 Ω) 4 $0.04 $0.16
Resistor (220 Ω) 3 $0.04 $0.12
Resistor (100 Ω) 1 $0.04 $0.04
Optocoupler – QRD1114 3 $1.50 $4.50

L2930D dual full bridge 1 $4.00 $4.00

motor drivers
Wheels 1 n/a n/a
Gearbox 1 n/a n/a
Atmel Atmega-8 1 n/a n/a
Total $9.16