As we enter a new quarter we are currently shifting gears from talking about the project and designing plans to prototype and create, into doing just that, prototyping and creating something that can be held and touched in the physical world

This week, our sensor subsystem is complete after we came back from the break. We will definately be moving the system to a bigger breadboard as this is a preliminary setup. The subsystem is neat and simple, it consists of sensors used to measure certain parameters such as acceleration, temperature, pressure, angle of tilt, and more measurements that are essential in guiding a probe back down to earth.

While the sensors circuitry themselves are easy to look and and were fairly simple to assemble, the selection was painstakingly… painstaking. A gigantic trade study excel sheet had to be created and each parameter had to be found in datasheets that hid answers in their own lingo. After this treasure hunt the team had to deliberate based on the parameters that were deemed important such as weight and cost. This was a long process but it was well worth the effort.

These trade studies are very important to the engineering process, it ensures the engineer is picking the best material/sensor/item by carefullying going through all of its characteristics that meets the project requirement, rather than picking one by random because it sounds good and hoping it works.

As we go through the quarter we will be looking at ways to test these sensors so they will be competition ready.