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CSCI 1600, Fall 2025

Project

Table of contents

  1. Project overview
  2. Timeline
  3. Proposal (Due Friday, Oct 10 at 11pm)
  4. Progress milestone (week of Nov 10)
    1. Final demo (reading period)

Project overview

Design and implement an embedded project using one or more Arduinos and some external electronic components.

Your project must:

  • Use PWM, ADC, or DAC
  • Have a watchdog timer
  • Have at least one interrupt service routine (watchdog timer doesn’t count)

It must also use at least one of:

  • Serial communication
  • WiFi
  • Timer/Counter

The idea and execution must demonstrate design skills and creativity, culiminating in a functioning deliverable (feedback for this will be given during the proposal and milestone).

To be updated as we cover these topics in class The final writeup and demonstration will also feature documentation of process (requirements writing, testing plan, modeling)

Timeline

  • Friday, Oct 3: Project groups assigned

  • Friday, Oct 10: Proposal due

  • Week of Oct 13: Proposal feedback received, parts ordering begins

  • Nov 11 and 12 (during lab time): Milestone presentations

  • Reading period (date TBD): Final demo

Proposal (Due Friday, Oct 10 at 11pm)

Write a project proposal (about 1 page) that has the following sections:

  1. High-level overview of what the project will be.

  2. Explanation of how the project will fulfill the requirements above.

  3. Proposed final deliverable for the project – what physical object will you demo, and what is the criteria by which we will know that the demo is successful?

  4. For each sensor/actuator you plan to use, a short (1-2 sentence) description of how you will know that the component is working. Before building the final project, you should get to know your hardware, and this section should explain how you will do that. For example, if you’re ordering a stepper motor, a valid answer would be “getting the stepper motor to rotate by 1/8 turn, pause, and repeat until it goes all the way around.” If you can, include a link to the Arduino library (e.g. Stepper) that pertains to the component.

  5. Discussion of uncertainties, such as challenges you anticipate in implementing the project, timeline considerations, faulty components, etc. You don’t have to provide a contingency plan for each uncertainty, but you should offer some idea of what a scaled-back project would look like.

  6. Preliminary list of parts to be ordered, with links. For complex components, include a PDF of the datasheet with the Gradescope submission, if possible (to make Milda’s life easier). We will give initial feedback for this before ordering parts. Keep in mind that the course is providing each group has a budget of about $10-$15 (you are welcome to use your own parts, especially if you have some lying around! Milda also has a selection of parts from previous years).

  7. Any resources (tutorials, libraries, videos) you’ve consulted in writing this report.

We’re aiming for parts orders to be placed by October 20. Factor in about a week of processing and shipping time to receive the hardware.

Progress milestone (week of Nov 10)

The progress milestone consists of a report (composed of artifacts from the left/design side of the software engineering V-model), a short presentation/demo, and peer reviews.

Final demo (reading period)

This demo is meant to be a celebration of all the hard work you put into making your project! You will get to show your classmates what you’ve accomplished and get to see what they accomplished. Have fun with it.