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ECE 477 Final Report Spring 2004
Appendix A: Individual Contributions
Contributions of Edward Sheriff:
Throughout the semester I took on many important roles in the design and development
of this project. Initially, Dan and I came up with the idea of the project and we determined the
main characteristics and goals of the project. Then as a group we refined these into our project
specific outcomes. As we did this, I took the role of leader since I helped to guide this process
and successfully assisted in finding each persons niche within the group. In this role I helped our
group work together in a more efficient and productive fashion.
In addition to my leadership role, I migrated toward the hardware design and
development. Since I am an electrical engineer and have more experience with hardware and
slightly less with software than other group members, I immediately became the hardware guy
and worked on developing the hardware design constraints. This process entailed the
development of our block diagram and component selection. Working with Dan at this stage, we
worked for many hours on the schematic design. At the same time, I continued to try and push
everyone to work together as I lead by example. This process was necessary as to be successful
as a group all members needed to say involved. To do this, I continued to keep Mike and Jon
(PC software guys) in the loop so that they could begin developing the software for the system
and also keep us informed of any additional hardware requirements that they may have.
After completion of the schematic, I worked diligently with Dan on the PCB layout. This
process took many hours since there were many design requirements. It was important to ensure
that every single trace was routed correctly since we only had one shot at getting it correct. If
this was incorrect, it could lead to the failure of our project. In addition to this, for our project it
was important to place all components as close together as possible in order to minimize package
size.
Once we received the completed circuit board, I was responsible for nearly all of the
surface mount soldering. This was not terribly difficult, but for it to be done accurately require a
lot of time. Since I did the soldering and I had done a lot of the design work, I worked with Dan
and sometimes Mike on verifying that the sections were working correctly. When there were
sections that did not function I put in many hours in an attempt to troubleshooting them. I
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