Skip to content

DesignBrief.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
93 lines (72 loc) · 4.91 KB

DesignBrief.md

File metadata and controls

93 lines (72 loc) · 4.91 KB

Design Brief

The Opportunity

A botanical research tool for evaluating the relationship between a plant’s surrounding environmental conditions and its phenomic expression.

Design Requirements

What specific functions must candidate designs have in order to address the problem as it stands?

  1. Internal environment can be controlled precisely and accurately, with specific focus on facilitating plant growth;
  2. Accurate and precise environment data collection;
  3. Accurate and precise (non-invasive) plant data collection.

Stakeholders

Whose wants or needs are we considering in the formulation of candidate designs?

  1. Hobbyist consumer
  2. Researcher
  3. Enterprises
  4. Schools
  5. Standard consumer

Objectives

What do our stakeholders value in a solution, alongside/about necessary functions? What should be valued in a candidate design?

High-Level

  1. DIY/"Maker" friendly (S1, S4)
  2. Option for pre-assembled units or kits (S1, S2, S3, S4, S5)
  3. Redundancy, durability, modularity, replaceability (S1, S2, S3, S4)
  4. Collects scientifically meaningful data on plant growth and environment (R2, R3, S2, S3, S4)
  5. Controls the meaningful components of the plant environment (R1, S1, S2, S3, S4)
  6. Internal environment is isolated from external environment (R1, R2, R3)
  7. Environment actuation is self-homeostatic, meaning that if you turn the lights on, the environment doesn't warm up (R1, R2, R3)
  8. Connectivity and fleet deployability (S2, S3)
  9. Ease of use (S1, S4, S5)
  10. Aesthetics, visual appeal (S1, S4, S5)

Low-Level

  1. DIY has "light fabrication" manufacturing requirements (HL1)
  2. Totally open-source - well-documented source code, BoM, schematics, etc. as well as manufacturing, and assembly processes (HL1)
  3. Easy/reliable to source parts (HL1)
  4. Accessible, justifiable cost (HL1, HL2)
  5. Ease of troubleshooting, straightforward solutions (HL1, HL3, HL9)
  6. Standalone/offline operation (HL1, HL3, HL9)
  7. Intuitive and low-complexity assembly (HL2)
  8. Option for purchasing full kits, "minerals"-only kits (electronics AND not commonly manufacturable parts, i.e PCB) (HL2)
  9. Option for singular part purchasing (i.e. bare PCB, singular sensor, etc.) (HL2, HL3)
  10. Sense current temperature, humidity, air quality, and plant mass (HL4)
  11. Timed camera capture and/or live feed (HL4)
  12. Control internal temperature, humidity, lighting, and watering (HL5)
  13. Networked and/or cloud operation (HL8)

Metrics

How do we measure the degree to which our objectives are being achieved? How do we compare candidate designs?

  1. Likelihood that a makerspace, school, university, or research lab might have access to the tools necessary for manufacturing (LL1)
  2. Licensing freedom (LL2)
  3. Readability, scope, and detail of documentation (LL2, LL5)
  4. Accessibility of documentation in terms of hosting (LL2, LL6)
  5. Accessibility, shipping time/cost, and variety of parts distributors (LL3)
  6. Reliability of part availability (LL3)
  7. Total cost of materials (LL4)
  8. Detail of device debug messaging (LL5)
  9. Scope of troubleshooting, detail of solutions (LL5)
  10. Likelihood that a household might have access to the tools necessary for assembly (LL7)
  11. Untrained assembly time (LL7)

Criteria and Constraints

What are the mandatory optima (constraints) and suggested criteria for design?

  1. User manufacturing must rely only on: 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, soldering, handtools. Pre-manufactured components may rely on more complex means (i.e. PCB manufacturing) (M1)
  2. Must use MIT license (M2)
  3. Documentation should cover all framing, diverging, and converging reasoning (M3)
  4. Documentation must provide reference to any source material (M3)
  5. All code, 3D model files, electronic schematics, bill of materials (BoM) and any other manufacturing specs must be made readily available and updated regularly (M3, M4)
  6. Must be hosted on GitHub (M4)
  7. Must provide detailed parts BoM for DigiKey, one reliable USA distributor and one international/backup distributor (M5, M6)
  8. Parts must be in active production (M6)
  9. Total cost of materials should be lowered while not sacrificing quality, and must not exceed 500CAD (M7)
  10. Debug messaging should be delivered in a variety of ways (i.e. onboard LEDs, onscreen log, email, push notification, etc.) in accordance with the abstraction layer that fails (M8)
  11. Troubleshooting should cover all potential device issues, including those not indicated by debug channels outlined in C10 (M9)
  12. Assembly must only rely on screwdrivers, allan keys, cutters, and pliers as tools (M10)
  13. Assembly kits should provide necessary tools (i.e. those listed in C10) (M10)
  14. Untrained assembly time should be minimized, and must not exceed 4 hours (M11)