Review of the Semester
Student experience 1 January 2016
It’s the New Year, which marks the conclusion of the first half of 3rd Year Project. I feel now would be a great time to round off the semester by wrapping up all the successes of the project so far. I’d heard many a student say, “You do basically all the third year project in the second semester”, and now I understand why.
WHAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED?
Well, this semester has been a success in some areas. Exciting opportunities with SEERIH has led to incredibly beneficial consultation with the likes of Dr Lynne Bianchi, Dr Jon Chippindal, and a host of primary school teachers. This has enabled the product to be designed with the target market in mind, and laid the groundwork for development.
Perhaps the highlight so far has been presenting the idea in a Dragons Den styled pitch at the Tinker Taylor Robot Pi event. With great discussions, and excellent feedback, it’s filled me with confidence in the potential of the product, with all teachers expressing interest in getting involved.
Plenty of other opportunities have also arisen, such as the UMIP Entrepreneur Workshops and the EEE Outreach Workshop. These have enabled me to develop a set of skills which will be applied to the project throughout the second semester.
As a result of all this, a strong roadmap is in place to continue development of the product in the second semester. Perhaps most importantly, the design work is done. With preliminary circuits tested, and all primary components ordered, we’re in a great place to be catapulted into phase 2 of development.
WHAT LESS SO?
But in truth, this isn’t as far as I’d like to have progressed. With an initial aim of completing the hardware by Christmas, it’s clear to see that there’s some catching up to do.
This downfall can be partially attributed to an unpredicted workload from other modules in the first semester. I elected to do a 6-3 module split over the two semesters, resulting in a consistently high level of deadlines throughout weeks 6-12. The price was paid in terms of time spent on the 3rd year project (and sleep), and what little time I did have was often devoted to some of the more ‘outside the box’ activities mentioned earlier.
But the 6-3 module split leaves us in a strong position for the coming weeks. Semester 2 provides many more hours for product development, which will be needed to meet the aim of a working prototype by Easter.
I’m eager to be able to spend serious time developing hardware and software. After all, that is why I’m here, and I’m incredibly excited to too see what challenges the continued product development will bring.
Alec
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