Capstone AT419 Strategy Session
11/20/18

The first strategy session for our AT419 capstone class was held on Tuesday the 11th of November, 2018. For this session we wanted to figure out a few key elements of what the next semester would look like. We wanted to figure out what we were doing for this project, where we would do it, and start formulating what roles each member would have.
We discussed a few different options of where we are planning on doing our project. We talking about the Lafayette Amphitheater, and the Coyote Crossing Golf Club as two possible options for our location. We discussed possibly doing both of these locations and comparing our results. The majority of the class agreed the Lafayette Amphitheater should be the main focus because it includes multiple areas of interest and different terrain in one close area including: forest areas, fields, rivers, the amphitheater, and the parking lot around the amphitheater.
The proposed title of this project is "Understanding Key UAS fundamentals through Applied Research". The classed discussed different research that we could do at the park. We discussed some things we would like to possible do regarding data collection and analysis. Many of us were interested in flooding data and comparing the water levels around the area. The amphitheater is a great area for that because there are different elevations in the area which helps with this data collection. We discussed making a 3D model of the amphitheater itself which could be very interesting and unique. For this project we are looking for different sub-projects that will be helpful to the paper we want to right about applied research. Anything along the lines of data collection and using that data collection will help this paper be a success.
The hardest part of this discussion was figuring out what rolls each member of the class wanted to take. To start this process we discussed the a few essential skills we would like to learn or improve that we could make rolls out of. The 4 we decided on as a class were: management, Flight operations, Platform Maintenance, and Research literature/published writing skills. From those skills we started brainstorming about rolls or how we would all fit into rolls. We decided that we should each have a primary roll that most likely wouldn't rotate around, a secondary roll, which would rotate, and possibly 2 other minor rolls. This way the person in the primary roll would be able to teach others that were rotating into that roll, and the whole group wouldn't need to relearn everything each time we rotated jobs. The only exceptions that will not fit into the workflow would be management. There will only be one project manager and one operations manager at a time, and the operations manager will not rotate. That was all we had time for in that class period, but we met up outside of class at a restaurant with a professional setting, called the Stacked Pickled. As a group we talked about our main roles that we wanted. I wanted to get experience in management because it's what I am passionate about. I have taken on the roll of project manager. My roll is to make sure that all other rolls are working well together in a timely fashion and report that information back to Professor Hupy. I will be in charge of making some dead lines for deliverables and overseeing that work gets done when it was suppose to be. Our other manager will be Kyle who is taking the role of Operation Manager. He will be in charge of scheduling people to gather data and deciding who flies what drone with what payload. Dylan will be taking control of our ground control team which does everything involving set up and continuous monitoring of ground control. Ryan and Ian are our payload integrator/system integration specialist. They will be in charge of properly fitting payloads to specific drones and having the knowledge to teach others how to do so as well. They is also in charge of making sure drones and payloads are ready for each flight and that drones are stored correctly after every flight. Todd is the lead flight engineer. This means that he will make sure to take thorough notes on how each drone works and functions, including setup, preflight, and monitoring during flight. He will need to know how to teach others how to use specific drones who have no experience with those drones. Krysta is our lead author on the project. She will be in charge of writing the paper, editing the paper, and helping format and edit any other deliverables that are brought together from the group. As a team, if everyone functions properly and as a group, we will be sure to succeed on this project. I personally am excited to be working with such a driven group of peers who are committed and excited about a project like this one.