[Unified-mailman] RE: SP9 clarification

[Charles P Coleman]

Aaron-

I apologize for the delayed response. I hope my reply is still useful.

a.. Firstly, what are the actual due dates for the 2 weekly reports (I am
assuming that the dates listed on the SP, April 22nd and 29th, are no longer
accurate)?

Prof Hall has responded with the schedule update. I repeat it below for
completeness:
(2) SP 9 is a two-week problem. Originally, Part I was to be due this week
(April 15), and Part II was to be due two weeks later (April 29). This
scheduled allowed for the signals lab to offered in the week in between.
Many students expressed their desire to complete SP 9 in two consecutive
weeks. Therefore, Part II of SP 9 will be due April 22, and the signals lab
will be the following week.

a.. Secondly, through the template document, you refer to both a 'System'
and '(Subsystem)' (I.1.1 and I.1.7 are the first occurrences respectively).
What exactly do you mean by 'System' and '(Subsystem)'?

In general filling in the subsections is OPTIONAL! If you have something
specific in your system (people, product, process) that you would like to
discuss in detail, please do so in one or two paragraphs. For example if
there is something truly unique or innovative about your landing gear build
procedures, please let me know. I'd love to read about it! Subsystem is just
a placeholder for any subpart of your system that I did not cover in the
headings that I gave you.

a.. Thirdly, sub-section 4 of each section, includes a time estimates &
actual table as well as sub-sub-sections for each component.  In addition to
the numbers we will put in the table, do you wish for us to write a
justification of our time estimates for each component (in short is this
redundant, or intentional)?

It would be nice if you would write a few sentences explaining how you got
your estimates. "We guessed" is fine. "We budgeted." is fine. Or "we
extrapolated from our baseline build" is a fine response. Really this is
mostly for your benefit, to get you use to tracking and estimating
performance. This is a good life skill to have in many situations. You will
find in the future that many organizations have very complex high fidelity
models for estimation and tracking. Best to get you use to the process now
so it doesn't look so foreign to you in the future.

In general documenting a design solution is extremely important.
Documentation is often the artifact we turn to when we are trying to
understand why things were done the way they were done. Without this
information humans often have a great deal of trouble understanding
accidents and failures, and modifying systems without producing grave
errors.  So documenting your goals, procedures, estimates and actuals is
very important. We'd have a much better understanding of the spectacular
Kemetic (Egyptian), Incan, and Mayan engineering achievements if we had
better documentation of what they did, why they did it and how they did it.

a.. Fourthly, on the System Performance table (IV.1) there are several
performance criteria with 'Not applicable' listed as their Actual Value
(Required Power, Motor Power, Motor RPM and CL,max to be specific).  Why is
this, are we not equipped to take actual values or are we just not
responsible for those actual values?

I guess I didn't think you would be equipped to measure the actual values,
so why ask you to be responsible for reporting them.

Not directly related to the Weekly Report, do you have any more information
regarding "orientation" for the CNC foam cutter and/or any other lab safety
procedure we might need for Build I & II.

OK. I got an update from Col Young on this. First, there will be no required
lab safety orientation. Secondly, CNC orientation is by appointment with Col
Young. E-mail him at pwyoung at mit.edu.

Hope this clearly answers all your questions!

Best-
Charles


-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Bell [mailto:ahbell at MIT.EDU]
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 12:30 AM
To: ccoleman at mit.edu
Cc: backrow at mit.edu
Subject: SP9 clarification


Professor Coleman,
        I was hoping you could clarify a few things regarding Systems
Problem 9.
  a.. Firstly, what are the actual due dates for the 2 weekly reports (I am
assuming that the dates listed on the SP, April 22nd and 29th, are no longer
accurate)?
  b.. Secondly, through the template document, you refer to both a 'System'
and '(Subsystem)' (I.1.1 and I.1.7 are the first occurrences respectively).
What exactly do you mean by 'System' and '(Subsystem)'?
  c.. Thirdly, sub-section 4 of each section, includes a time estimates &
actual table as well as sub-sub-sections for each component.  In addition to
the numbers we will put in the table, do you wish for us to write a
justification of our time estimates for each component (in short is this
redundant, or intentional)?
  d.. Fourthly, on the System Performance table (IV.1) there are several
performance criteria with 'Not applicable' listed as their Actual Value
(Required Power, Motor Power, Motor RPM and CL,max to be specific).  Why is
this, are we not equipped to take actual values or are we just not
responsible for those actual values?
        Not directly related to the Weekly Report, do you have any more
information regarding "orientation" for the CNC foam cutter and/or any other
lab safety procedure we might need for Build I & II.
Thanks for taking the time to address my questions, I hope I haven't been
too confusing in my inquiries.
Regards,

Aaron Bell
Team 14


Aaron Bell
MIT Class of 2006
Aero/Astro Engineering
Mobile: (203) 247-6331
Email:   ahbell at mit.edu
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