I was lucky enough to choose a Capstone project where we did not have to pay for anything, all of our parts were given to us from previous attempts at the project. However we later found out that the sensors we got were faulty and we had to buy new ones ourselves. This was a major set back to the project, we kept modifying our code thinking we were the problem while it was the actual sensors the entire time. Since we had no budget, we had no earned value management and no proper schedule variance. When we finally realized the sensor problem we were already behind schedule. This means that maybe we were not so lucky to get a zero cost zero budget project, especially when using parts from previous uncompleted attempts. Summarizing: planned value = $0; actual cost = cost of sensors; schedule variance = cost of sensors. Since Capstone projects all have to be finished at a set time, we did end-up finishing however we were greatly rushing towards the end.