Overview

Week 7 drove the project to the brink of physical prototyping as the team neared completion of the Altium schematic and successfully validated the core circuit on a breadboard. Concurrently, the software team close-out isolated testing logic, and work began on the business side to frame our progress for upcoming stakeholder presentations.

What We Did

• Schematic Capture Finalization: Entered the final stages of the Altium schematic design, successfully linking our custom-built component footprints and wiring the primary electrical connections.
• Breadboard Circuit Validation: Assembled a functional prototype on a breadboard to physically confirm the electrical logic, sensor connections, and I2C communication bus integrity before locking the design.
• Isolated Code Testing: Advanced the core software logic to near-completion for isolated unit tests, ensuring individual sensor drivers and data parsing routines function reliably before full system integration.
• Pitch Deck Initialization: Started drafting the official project pitch deck, translating our technical architecture, finalized BOM costs, and reliability metrics into a compelling business-facing presentation.

Key Decisions

• Design Freeze for Layout Preparation: Decided to lock the schematic topology following the successful breadboard validation, allowing the team to transition smoothly into the physical PCB layout phase without introducing scope creep.

Challenges

• Breadboard Signal Noise: Encountered minor communication instability during breadboard testing due to loose jumper connections and stray capacitance, which required implementing proper pull-up resistors on the I2C lines to stabilize the signals.

Next Steps

• Formally sign off on the Altium schematic and begin the physical PCB component placement and trace routing.
• Wrap up the final isolated software tests and prepare the unified codebase for hardware integration.
• Refine the pitch deck structure and practice the delivery narrative ahead of sponsor reviews.