2.009: Product Design Capstone

Our team of 18 seniors was tasked with creating a new product ready for an alpha launch by the end of the semester.

After half a semester of ideation, modeling, prototyping, and deliberation, we decided to work on a search and rescue project we called Coordinate.

Coordinate has a different device for each of the 3 types of people in a search.

The lead and command modules could see the real time location of all searchers and leads, allowing them to better coordinate the search.

Our alpha prototype allowed a high level of functionality.

Including accurate GPS, automatic mesh communication and acceptable battery life.

Our market was small, but the need is very strong, allowing Coordinate to be profitable.

I did ~90% of the electronics design, assembly, and testing for our project.

Here's what I worked on:

Final Revision PCBs

These are final populated pcbs.

Visible are the radio modules, GPS, microcontroller, and voltage regulators

Electronics Architecture

This annotated eagle schematic details the function of the electronics. We have an ARM microcontroller broken out to talk to a meshed radio, GPS, LEDs, switches. All components are powered by AA batteries and voltage regulation chip.

PCB Evolution

Various improvements have been made across iterations. We learned to use more COTS that we could test on a breadboard and increase the size of boards for ease of assembly to aid in producing a successful product.

Mass Produced PCBs

I populated the PCBs with a combination of reflow and hand soldering.

Example Eagle Design

v2.0 prototype was my most complicated eagle design, including a custom ARM cortex breakout and voltage regulation.We ended up reverting to a breakout of a existing microcontroller later.

Prototype PCBs

I had never worked on electronics before and learned soooo much designing and fabricating the most complicated 2.009 electronics in years.

It took over 50 hours a week for most of my semester but every second was worth it.

Watch our final presentation here:

Uploaded by 2.009 MIT on 2018-07-23.

Here's some random pictures of our team working on projects and design challenges

Product Development