ENGR 100-600

Design-Build-Test-Communicate Demo

The ROV Project: Lots of designing and building, lots of documentation!

Learn what technical communication is all about, and then learn how your audience impacts your communication style. Practice your new skills with professional emails!

Tour the lab and learn about hydrostatics with a simple underwater vechicle.

Welcome to Week 2!

We'll be learning about some basic hydrodynamics concepts, like drag and thrust, and how the placement of your thrusters impacts how you can control your ROV.

We'll also talk about a specific kind of informal technical communication report called a memo and how you can use a memo template to set up your own reports, including your Individual Design Proposal!

Stay on top of your work! We're starting to get into a routine of assignments that are due. Make sure you complete these on time for full credit!

Join the course late? Not to worry! Email the instructors to introduce yourself and then check Week 1 for links to things you need to get caught up on.

Try out an ROV driving simulator for some frustrating fun 😊

First, watch the demo video

Then, try it out! (this might work best in Chrome)

🗨 Dr. Alford says: Feeling angry after trying to drive this ROV around? ME TOO! Think of how you could design an ROV that is easier to control! 🎉

a computer graphic of a bunch of dials, switches, and buttons

Image: Unicom Communications

Homework 2

This is Labor Day. If you don't want to do this assignments today, just do it early! There's no penalty for submitting things early.

Intro to ROV Hydrodynamics and Controls

ROV Controls Activity

The Individual Design Proposal

Tandem Beginning of Term Survey

Learn about memo format for informal reports and practice using a template to create a proposal.

Investigate a demo ROV and practice soldering by building a basic control circuit.

Welcome to Week 3!

We'll talk about how hydrodynamic stability is (or maybe is not!) a design decision for your ROV. And we'll hear from a variety of guests about ROVs out in the real world the value of creating prototypes.

We'll also talk about how you can create clear visuals and text to help convey your idea for an ROV design!

Join the course late? Not to worry! Email the instructors to introduce yourself and then check Weeks 1 and 2 for links to things you need to get caught up on.

This student-facing post from Arizona State University talks about office hours: why to use them, how to prepare for them, etc. We hope you'll come visit us in our office hours, and we want to emphasize that you can come to discuss course-related questions or concerns, but you can also come to ask us about majors, about your resume, etc. We are very excited to meet with you 1:1!

a student getting help from an IA about their 3D model of the ROV payload

Image: courtesy of Robin Fowler, Ian Rosenberg, and Lyn Tran

Homework 3

ROVs in the Real World, Technical Prose, Visuals

Tandem Lesson

Hydrodynamic Stability, Guest Lecture on prototyping in the real world

Memo Body and IDP check-in

Learn how to create a basic 3D model of an ROV in Onshape.

Individual Design Proposal

Welcome to Week 4!

You'll be making a lot of visuals for your presentations in this course, so let's keep talking about what makes a good visual! You will also get to meet your ROV team! And we will learn about CRAP, and how you can use CRAP principles to make your ROV team's visuals not be ...crap. 😉

We'll also go over all of the Design Reviews that will help your ROV team design, build, and test a successful ROV. Starting with your Preliminary Design Review next week!

Have you noticed that cargo shorts made a bit of a comeback? Perhaps it's just their time to shine again in the cycle of fashion. But maybe it's because enough people saw this analysis of the size of women's jeans pockets vs. men's jeans pockets and everyone decided they wanted to actually have pockets again. Check it out, it's a great analysis with fantastic visuals! And a history of pockets!

🗨 Dr. Alford says: Want more cool visuals? Check out another article on the same site about the best way to dice onions!

Jan Diehm & Amber Thomas, The Pudding

Homework 4

Visuals, Presentations, Pitching Ideas; Meet Your Team; CRAP

Tandem Lesson

You will complete this lesson as part of lab this week

Project Design Reviews

Tandem Team Check

Get feedback on your Individual Design Proposal before you submit it, or just use this as scheduled time to finish up your proposal. See Canvas Announcement for more details!

Sunday, September 14th, TBD

TBD

Learn about combining ideas and prepare for your PDR

Take a tour of the Duderstadt Center's fabrication facilities to help understand what you might create for your custom part. Create an operating agreement to help guide your team towards a successful project.

Meet in the Central Collaboration Area on the first floor of the Duderstadt Center (DC floor map)

Welcome to Week 5!

There are specific calculations that you'll need to report on for your ROV. This is a prototype ROV, so we're going to focus on some "high-level" numbers to describe the ROV.

Coming to a consensus on your team can be hard... but don't worry! We will learn some approaches that will help!

The ROV Project starts in earnest this week, with a preliminary design review. Make sure to have your slides ready for this meeting.

Lab is 3 hours this week. We need more than 2 hours to get through all of the preliminary design reviews, so we'll combine lab and discussion time this week.

This article from Wired asks Does Jewelry and Big Hair Slow Down Olympic Runners? We really like how the article uses basic equations and common sense to see if there's any big differences in "operating conditions", as opposed to looking for tiny nuances to optimize. We'll be taking a similar approach with our ROV calculations.

a stick figure running; long hair and a cape are streaming backwards

Image: Laura Alford, adapted from an image by Rhett Allain in the article

Homework 5

ROV Prototype Calculations

Tandem Early Survey

Team Communication Styles and Coming to Consensus

Tandem Team Check

Meet with your instructors to talk through your ROV design ideas, and learn about what can (and can't!) be built in the lab for your ROV.

This is a three hour lab. Please go to lab at the start of your discussion time.

You will spend your discussion time at the lab; discussions will not meet separately this week.