For my capstone project, I had to follow a schedule I made on microsoft project. We had allocated a certain amount of time for a specific part of the project. The week before we ran into an issue with whatever we were doing that week and as a result it delayed whatever we were doing the week after. As a result, we had to speed certain things up and work more often on the project to keep up with our schedule. Usually we had like 4-5 hours per week where we would work on the project but because of the issue, we had to 1) fix the issue and 2) do the work that we were delaying. We had to work extra, maybe, 6-7 hours per week now to catch up. We didn't have a contingency plan because we weren't really expecting issue with whatever came up so we just had to work overtime to meet the goal.

Sharing my research experience, I was doing a computational study on the BCR phili gene. The entire research project was broken down into multiple parts: Computational Data, Analysis, Literature comparison, and finally presenting my findings to a committee in order to complete the requirement for my undergraduate graduation. After collecting the data for about two months (half a semester) through software and analyzing the BRC gene and it's correlation to cancer. One of the major setbacks was the computer memory. The computers and software were set in the lab where all of the computational data obtained during a trail was lost if you signed off the computer (did not know this). This resulted in gaps in my computational data that needed to be compared to published literature and analyzed. After saving most of my data every time, there were some days when I did not save the data assuming it would be stored on the computer. This assumption resulted in spending another semester at the college and redoing the entire computational part of the data during the summer time. When it came to compile all the data and analyze it, my research professor and I realized it was missing big chucks of sequences. In other words, the data compiled was useless and could not be compared to any published findings and relate to its effect on cancer. The only option I had was to work on the entire computational during the summer and save the data each time, and finally I was able to present my findings to the committee and graduate. So one assumption caused a 6 month delay in my undergraduate and work life.

This taught me the importance of breaking your work down and managing the collected information and verifying it as you obtain it. Rather than wait until the end to find out you have wasted a lot of time that could of been used to do something more productive. This is the closest thing that refers to this week's lecture that I personally experienced and how planning is essential.

For my senior project, my group members and I were building an adapter for the iron-gym. The scope of it was just a commercialized product to be used in conjunction with another product. The target audience was really suited towards athletes and fitness minded individuals. Our project is meant to undergo a lot of stress and so testing for failure and breakage was the big functional requirement we had to test for. One of our milestones was to run a simulation for this and to have this simulation confirm that our project/product could handle x amount of weight capacity. However, since the simulation was really complex we figured in the meantime we could build a prototype with weaker material and physically test it ourselves with varying weight capacities that eventually led up to our target weight. We showed our project manager, our professor, and it was a valid substitute for the time being. This allowed us to continue with the dependent steps and actually start gathering materials for the actual final product.

While working at General Dynamics Electric Boat, I was working on a project that had to go on a certain submarine. Due to failures of prototype testing and the time needed to re-design the prototype, it couldn't go on the targeted submarine. We explained this to all stakeholders and ended up targeting another submarine that was similar to put our prototype on. I believe it is very important to stay on track and meet all milestones, but things go wrong in life. Its more important to be able to quickly come up with another plan and ensure that the project proceeds.

I was working on my class project called “Quadruped Spider robot” which was built in 3D printer and powered by Arduino. Many obstacles came across during the project which caused a delay. The main issue was 3D printing parts which were not working in special specifications as wanted. The exact moment and programming were complicated for 3 degrees of freedom robot. Due to those issues and new to Arduino programming, it caused problems using Reverse kinematics. Finally it worked but not as wanted using hard-code. It would have been easier if know how to implement reverse kinematics.

During my capstone project, we created a Gantt chart using Microsoft Project to guide us and better visualize the timeline of the project. In the Gantt chart, we divided the project into three parts, thinking, designing, and testing and allocated specific time for each part. During mid-semester, we realized that we missed several milestones and need to catch up to meet the project deadline. As a result, we looked at the chart again to see the effective way to catch up. We came up with the strategy 1) working extra hours outside of classroom 2) working independent of each other to achieve the goal. We didn’t have a contingency plan as it was an unexpected issue, but we just had to speed things up to finish the project on time.

One particular project I had worked on at a drug discovery & development laboratory ran into the issue of missing a milestone. In this situation, the Gantt chart had planned for 4 researchers to work on a complete the initial R&D along with half of the synthesis in 3 weeks. However, 1.5 weeks in, one of the student researchers working in the team contracted mono and was unable to complete his part of the project. This caused us to be behind on the synthesis of the particular drug at the 3 week milestone. To remedy this issue, the lead professor decided to purchase a large segment of the final drug (we had normally made all our drug compounds from scratch) which got us back on track according to the Gantt chart but costed the chemistry department ‘unplanned’ money.

This week’s lesson speaks volumes to my experience with highlighting the critical path. So during my senior design course I encountered numerous obstacles which affected our critical path. I and my two friends were supposed to design a controller using a RS232 shield which would control a robotic arm called an iARM. In order to outline our entire project deadlines we used Microsoft project to keep track of deadlines and highlight our critical path. The Microsoft project calendar allowed us to see which assignments needed to get done on time due to the fact that it will affect another assignment. My group decided to set approximately 2 weeks to work on the RS232 shield so that we can begin our coding and testing. However, we ended up spending over a month on the assignment which pushed back our testing and software coding. We actual reached a critical point when we believed that we could not complete the proposed project on time. We had to analyze our critical path and come up with a way to still meet our deadlines with a new approach on controlling the iARM. To overcome the missed milestone we had to switch our control mechanism from using an RS232 shield to using MATLAB software on a desktop computer.

During my capstone project for the smart-cast, we've missed a couple milestones due to external factors. We also just a gantt chart to record our progress, and when we missed a milestone it would set us back considerably. Things like the 3d printer not working or components not shipping on time would contribute to missed milestones. However, I quickly realized that building a contingency plan within the gantt chart itself would be the best solution in order to ensure a realistic project schedule without having to sacrifice features. We explained this issue with our project manager very honestly and transparently, and we always came prepared with a contingency plan. Sometimes we scrapped the milestone since we realized it was not needed. Overall, it's a learning experience whenever you miss a milestone. The important thing I realized was to be prepared in the face of such circumstances occurring and use a contingency plan in the advent of missing a milestone.

During a project that I was working on our team missed a milestone for our execution of animal trials. We had gone through the protocols for conducting the trial, however there was an error in the paper work required for approval of the animal trial and the testing facility. This error delayed us in our trial by about two weeks and increased our budget as the trial had to be resubmitted and expedited, costing more than normal. Our project manager had accounted for project slack in this scenario because he had encountered similar problems in other projects where testing facilities contracted were an issue, therefore this setback did not affect us significantly. In order to assure that no further time was wasted we personally went to the testing facility where the trial was being conducted, in order to ensure the protocol written was followed correctly. This is usually not common practice, however we could not risk delaying the timeline further, and were cleared by the contracting facility to be present for the trial. It turned out to be a good decision because there was some confusion on the protocol and I believe that it would not have been followed correctly if we were not present at the site.

For my senior design project, we were working on a non-invasive vascular stiffness monitor, we were prototyping on bread board, which connected to a an ossciliscope for data analysis. Half way through our project we realized that the breadboard had areas with corrosion, thus effecting our connected sensors and our results. Based on our timeline, we were suppose to test our device on possible patients if we could simplify the circuit and design. With a half yr wasted on bad data, were only able to replace the bread board and redo our tests, and unfortunately we were not able to test our device on patients/people, but we were able to just recover adequate data to present for our final presentation. We were not expecting this setback, during the project.

CHris

In my senior design course we created a Gantt chart early on and estimated all of the required steps in the critical path. One of which was the procurement of the prototype components. This was a major milestone as it would allow the construction of the prototype. However, due to ordering small quantities of components, components were often unavailable or on back order. This was a major issue as it had pushed a great deal of scheduled assignments farther in the critical path.

During a class project, we missed one milestone it delayed the entire project and we had to move faster in other milestones to accommodate for the time lost. The project was an eye tracking device and after accomplishing most of it we realized that a major test in our test plan had failed due to the missed milestone which has significantly delayed the entire process but our professor allowed modifications and we were able to accomplish the project on time.

The company that I work with that does the automation for a Coca-Cola warehouse is still a relatively new site. As a new site, there are a lot of expectations and milestones that must be reached in order to meet Coke's demands. Though I do not know if the project manager is following a specific Gannt chart, we did have benchmark days every week for months tonshow that we were capable of production. However missing one "milestone" when employed by a company, especially an established company, can lead to being cut or being given an ultimatum to get back on track. To deal with missed milestones, the project manager would allocate resources to push and drive the project forward, and would spend less time on optimization and testing on site that would affect production time.