Student Information

A lecture on project management is given on the first day of a course (2pm) on the principles of project management with special reference to the IDP. In addition information is given on using the on-line management tools and bulletin boards.

• Project & Team Forums - Individual team discussion forums (information about accessing them are emailed to students at the start of a course) + Course forums with a 'Ask the Expert' section

Access is also given to a number of project management and planning tools, in particular GanttProject which is opensource, compatible with MSProject and available on the departmental teaching system [MDP].

• GanttProject - It is possible to install Ganttproject on your local machine, however beware download size is typically 7-10 MB and Java Runtime Environment is also required.
  • Zip archive (Platform independent distribution with launchers for Linux/UNIX (.sh), MacOSX (.command),and Windows(.bat))
  • Windows installer . (Windows installer that adds shortcuts to your Start menu and creates file associations.)
  • MacOSX package. (Disk image file for MacOSX users.)
  • Linux packages
• Example IDP GanttProject File
• Sample Gantt Chart (pdf)

Design Process

• Introduction to the Design Process [MDP]
• Practical Guidelines for Mechanical Design and Manufacture [MDP]

Electrical CAD

• Introduction to IDP PCBs
• Plots of line-following and Prototyping boards which can be used as the basis for manual component layout drawings
• Introduction to soldering and electronic prototyping - VIDEO.
  • MPEG format
  • AVI format
  • DVD format (Warning large file ~200MB)
• ECAD files - The main IDP PCBs are designed using the ECAD suite gEDA which is available on the teaching system [MDP]. The files and information below can be used for design special PCBs [MDP]
  
  

  Prototyping board Shortform Manual Schmatic (gscheme) file PCF 8574 symbol file PCB file Line Following board Shortform Manual Schmatic (gscheme) file IR Line Sensor symbol file PCB file

  
  

  Simple PCB-Stripboard Layout CAD Introduction Zip file with JAR file etc Download - unzip and double click on diylc.jar. Not recommended but often works where user is not an administrator - e.g. Teaching system Line Following Board Prototyping board diylc homepage

  
  
  • Mini-tutorials/information on sensors available for IDP projects
    • Data on Light Dependant Resistors
    • Data on NTC thermistors
    • Data on thermocouples
    • IR Distance Sensor (Sharp) Datasheet
    • Strain Gauges
    • Hall Probes
    • IR Beacon Assembly

  • Pic 12F1840 Module
  This consists of a Pic 12F1840 DIP package mounted on a simple carrier board which gives
  • A 5pin In-circuit breakout pins - for use with PIC2 compatible programmers
  • 4 low current indicator leds connected, Left-> right to

    Led 1	....	Pin 3	....	PORTA.5
    Led 2	....	Pin 5	....	PORTA.2
    Led 3	....	Pin 6	....	PORTA.1
    Led 4	....	Pin 7	....	PORTA.0

    NB The leds are fed by a 5.1K resistor which will result in a variable intensity if a analogue i/p voltage is applied.
  • The program example_flash.gcb can be downloaded and opened in Graphical GCBasic** (available in Windows on department) It has a basic set-up configured for the 12F1840, running at 32MHz. It predefines constants led1, led2, led3, led4 to simplify access to the corresponding O/Ps. All pins can be accessed by their internal name PORTA.0 -> PORTA.5

    ** - GCGB comes with a in built help facility and full access to assembler functionality and listings if required.

  
  

  Mechanical CAD

  Creo is available on the DPO and EIETL computers and can be run from the MDP DVD provided the computer is connected to the internet. A set of predrawn IDP components is available from the MDP_Library section on all systems.

  • General Introduction/Manuals [MDP]
  • Useful CAD Models (Solid and Sheetmetal)
  • Introduction to the use of the ProEngineer Sheet Metal module, with specific reference to IDP.
  • Background information on Water Jet Technology
  • A3 Graph Paper
  • A3 ISO Paper