Phase 1 The class was introduced to Dr. Pachowicz's Solar
Powered Autonomous Mower (SPAM), currently under development, and was tasked
to perform research to educate ourselves on the topic of robotics. We divided
ourselves into teams to research robotics activity in
books and journals, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the World Wide Web (WWW). The
teams spent approximately one month conducting research, developing
research reports and presenting their results. Class lecture periods were
devoted to an exploration of SPAM and to a discussion of the goals and
objectives of the Senior Design Project.
Phase 2 The class spent approximately one month defining the need for our product and developing the design documents that captured the results of our work. The work performed during this period consisted of interviews with faculty members in the School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE) to determine the system requirements, and writing the first four of the seven documents that documented the system design process. These were: Problem Situation, Operational Need, System Requirements, and System Requirements Validation.
Phase 3 The class continued the faculty interviews, attended sessions of GMU's introductory engineering course (SYST-107), and began interviewing high school students and guidance counselors to refine the definition of our project and to develop its conceptual design. Our work was documented in the last three of the seven system design documents: Concept Exploration, System Functional Analysis and Decomposition, and Systems Physical Synthesis, as well as in a final proposal and formal presentation to the SITE faculty.
Lessons Learned: In addition to the main objectives of learning the systems engineering methodology by hands-on experience, the class learned valuable lessons in personal and group time management and planning, group organization and leadership skills, and in writing and presenting concepts in systems design.
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