MTRX1701 Introduction to Mechatronic Engineering

Assignment 2: Individual system design 2020

Notes on the Assignment
1. This assignment is worth 12% of your final mark in MTRX1701.
2. You will have the opportunity to ask the tutors for assistance during the tutorial sessions in
weeks 6–8. You should spend approximately one hour preparing for each of these tutorials
so that you can benefit fully from them.
3. The tutors will not assist you further unless you can provide real evidence you have
attempted the questions prior to the tutorials. Beyond the tutorial sessions, it is estimated
that you will need two to three hours to complete the assignment (7-8 hours total).
4. You may discuss the assignment with your peers, however all written work submitted for
assessment must be strictly your own unless cited.
5. All work must be completed electronically (i.e. typed) including all diagrams.
Assignment Submission
1. Submit your assignment electronically as PDF files via the “Assignments” page on the
MTRX1701 Canvas site. Two PDF files are to be submitted for this assignment:
1. The answers to Questions 1 to 3, presented in the form of a report; and
2. A single landscape-oriented slide for your sales pitch (Question 4) in PDF form.
2. The assignment is due at 11:59 pm, Saturday 25 April (end of week 8).
3. Late submission will be penalised by deducting 5% of the maximum mark for each
calendar day after the due date. Zero will be awarded after ten calendar days late.
4. Submit early enough to ensure that your submission is processed by 11:59 pm.
5. Keep the email that will be generated automatically by the system as proof of your
submission.

Context of the Assignment
Written and verbal communication: Contrary to the opinion of many students, engineers need to
be excellent communicators. Learning to communicate effectively—both verbally through
listening and talking, and in writing through reports and other technical documents—is probably
the single most important thing a young engineer can do to accelerate their career progression.
That young engineer may be the smartest, most creative employee working in a company but if
they are not able to communicate effectively, and to ‘sell’ their ideas to managers and clients, it is
likely that they will languish in a back room, working for others.
Of course, it is equally important to behave ethically: ‘selling’ ideas which have no substance is to
be strongly discouraged…
page 2 of 5 pages

Assumptions again: In answering the questions in this assignment you will need to make some
simplifying assumptions. Remember that the quality of a solution to a problem, and how that
solution should be interpreted, will depend on the assumptions that are made. Be careful to clearly
state and justify the assumptions that you make.
This assignment taken as a whole asks you to design a mechatronic system. One key step in
design is eliciting the requirements from the client. During this assignment the tutors and I will act
as your client; you should ask us questions on the Ed discussion board to clarify the design
requirements.
Following the theme of developing written and verbal communication skills, we ask that you
1. Present your written answers in the form of a technical report, and
2. Present, or ‘pitch’ your design in a short verbal presentation to your Zoom tutorial group.
Further guidance will be given in the tutorials.
Question 1: Analysing datasheets [20 marks]
During your mechatronics degree you are likely to come across a number of ‘development
systems’: boards and/or software produced specifically by manufacturers to assist engineers to
develop systems with their products. Have a look at the following devices as documented by the
manufacturer’s datasheets:
 NVIDIA Jetson Nano https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/downloads > download the
Jetson Nano Developer Kit User Guide
 Google Coral Dev(elopement) board https://coral.ai/docs/dev-board/datasheet/ >
Download PDF datasheet (just above “Overview”)
From the two datasheets, determine the following:
a. What are the different audiences for these two datasheets? [2 marks]
b. What processor and clock speed does each board run? [2 marks]
c. What are the physical dimensions of each board? [2 marks]
d. What are the voltage and current-draw requirements of each board? [2 marks]
e. What are the maximum Ethernet data rates that each board supports? [2 marks]
f. How many pulse-width-modulated (PWM) signals can be output simultaneously from the
Jetson Nano? [1 mark]

A third development system that may be of interest during your studies is the
 Red Pitaya STEMlab 125-14 https://www.redpitaya.com/f130/STEMlab-board > click on
“Manual”.
g. When might you want to use the STEMlab board in preference to the Jetson Nano or Coral
Dev boards? [3 marks]
h. List one comparable advantage and one comparable disadvantage for each of these three
development systems when used to control a motion-detecting sensor? [6 marks]
page 3 of 5 pages

Question 2: Requirements capture [20 marks]
In my neighbourhood there is a (growing!) family of Australian Brush-turkeys (Figure 1) that love
to wander around wreaking havoc on our garden. These ground-dwelling birds rake up leaf litter
with their claws to make a nest. This is a big problem in my back yard since there is a steep bank
that is prone to erosion and my house is in a known land-slip zone...


Figure 1: Australian Brush-turkey (Alectura lathami). Source:
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Alectura-lathami

I want a device that humanely scares these birds away, in a non-audible manner since loud sounds
will annoy the neighbours. I am willing to spend $450 on this device. Please design it for me.
Additional information
A sketch plan of my back yard is shown in Figure 2. This figure shows the small lawn, the steep
bank, low retaining wall at the base of the bank and the fence line. Approximate dimensions,
bearings and relative levels (RLs) are indicated on the plan.
Figure 3 and Figure 4 are photographs of my back yard. No brush-turkeys are evident. The
approximate locations of the points A, B, C and D from Figure 2 are shown on the photographs.
Your design should include:
a. The functional and system block diagrams for the design including sensors, actuators and
controllers. [10 marks]
b. A process sequence diagram that shows along a time axis how the constituent parts that
make up the system will operate against infiltrating birds. [3 marks]
c. A project priority matrix for the system. [3 marks]
d. A description of the sensor requirements including range, accuracy, resolution and precision
required to detect a live Brush-turkey with a low false-alarm probability. [10 marks]
e. A description of the targeting actuator requirements: range, accuracy, resolution and
precision in order to adequately target one or more birds. [10 marks]
f. A description of the actuation system and its predicted performance. [4 marks]

page 4 of 5 pages


Figure 2: Sketch plan of my back yard. Brush-turkeys infiltrate from all directions.
3. Component selection [20 marks]
By finding and referencing appropriate datasheets, determine the bill-of-materials (or “BOM”, a
list of components) required to completely specify your system. Tools, test equipment and sundry
items such as fasteners, wire, cable-ties, etc. need not be included. Specific cables, such as those
that connect a specific sensing element to a computing element must be included. All components
must be in stock at the supplier, and shipping costs should be included. A bill-of materials
template will be issued via Canvas and should be used in your submission.
4. Sales pitch [20 marks]
You will each have two minutes to present your individual design via Zoom during the tutorial
sessions in week 9. You should prepare a single PowerPoint (or equivalent) slide in advance to
illustrate your presentation. Your slide can have elements that change as you give your
presentation, but at the conclusion of your presentation your slide must present a coherent, static
visual appearance that shows all of the elements that were visible during your presentation. It is
this final view of the slide that you are required to submit as a PDF file via Canvas.

Record of Changes

A DCR 09/04/2020 Dimensions in Fig 2 changed
— DCR 01/04/2020 First release
Revision Made by Date Detail