[ Home ] [ Project Proposal ] [ Weekly Reports ] [ Design Report ] [ Fall Design Report ] [ Presentation Slides ] [ Ideas/Resources ] [ SD Day ]   Future Ideas: If we had an unlimited budget of money and time, we would have liked to install our project into the Stevens mail room to keep the Stevens campus on the cutting edge of technology.   In the future, rather than having switches to send the signals to the microprocessors we would have preferred to use some type of ultrasonic sensors, however this was cost prohibitive as well.     Helpful Resources: Stevens Institute was our most valuable resource. The ECE department allowed us to borrow a MC68HC11 microcontroller. They also allowed us to use their lab space while we were programming our microprocessor and wiring our bread board.   Professor Man, Professor McNair and TAs were helpful in answering certain technical questions regarding our design that we ran into.   The construction of our prototype mailbox was made possible by the donation of time and materials by family members of the group.     Other Helpful Info: The first piece of advice we would offer to future students is to try to adhere to the Gantt chart that you made in the previous semester. (An example of our Gantt chart is below.)   Also, it is important when preparing the Gantt chart, and laying out responsibilities and tasks, to try not to have too many linked tasks. This will help to decrease delays caused by problems encounterd in early stages.   Having fall back plans incase things do not work the way you expect them to is important.   It is essential to build in extra time for things that will wind up taking longer than you expect them to. (Do not plan to finish your project the day before it is due!)   If you are stuck on a technical problem, do not waste too much time with it, try asking your advisor for help.   Gantt Chart