What's on this page

The project can seem overwhelming at first. Here is a set of activities you should complete in the first week to get going.

Team bonding

We'll pay up to $100 for your team to get together for a bonding activity, as long as everyone goes and the bonding activity occurs in February. Use it or lose it!

Schedule your team bonding activity now.

Keep your receipts and we'll process a reimbursement.

You must document your bonding with pics and/or video. Post to social and send us links, or send pics/video to Joel directly.

To-do: schedule team bonding event time/location. This is optional, but strongly encouraged.

Team name

Your team needs a name. Spend a few minutes brainstorming on one. If you can't do it now, the team bonding event is a great time to do that.

To-do: Fill out your team name in your specifications doc on Google Drive folder once you have access.

Team documents

Google Drive

We'll store some documents in a Google Drive folder. We will create a folder for you and send you links. Here you will store, specifications & testing document, milestones & deliverables table, data, presentations, documentation, etc.

Github

We'll set up repos for you on github.mit.edu and give your team access to it. All your embedded/server code and pcb files go here.

Slack

To communicate internally as a team and with staff, every team will get a Slack workspace. Use it.

Team roles & activities

To make any progress you need to start to divide and conquer. We suggest that you organize your initial team roles as follows:

• Sensors & electronics
• Power management
• MCU & Firmware
• Backend/server/frontend
• Industrial design
• Concept development -- this is everyone

It could be one person, two, maybe three. Don't necessarily pick based on expertise -- part of the reason we have a class is to learn new stuff. So pick based on interest and expertise.

And note that these roles will need to evolve over time. Two teammates might start by working on sensors, but that activity may consume very little effort in April, at which time one person transitions to firmware. Your team is like a startup, and you need to be flexbile and pitch in where needed.

To-do: Decide who will work on each subsystem and enter into milestones and deliverables table.

Required recurring meetings

Team meetings

We expect each team to meet together as a team to make progress on the project. Some of this will be sub-team meetings & work, and some will need everyone there, especially early on.

To-do: Decide on whole team and subsystem team meeting time, location, format.

Mentor meetings

You are also required to meet with your mentor each week. Every team member is required to attend. This meeting will last an hour.

These check-in meetings are where we'll go over your milestones and deliverables, talk about the project, and so on. They are graded so treat them seriously.

This isn't enough time to go into detail on all the subsystems, or to unearth a tricky bug, so you'll want separate times (with your team and/or with your mentor) for that.

Your team meeting time/location is posted on Piazza.