1. Team 3 Power Meter James Aitkenhead, Nicole Ogden, Matt Quantz
2. The Product Targets customers who want to monitor energy statistics with an easy-to-use graphical interface Our widget will help you to be more aware of your energy usage, saving you time and money
5. Project Management We used a combination of traditional and agile project management. It would be very hard to manage a project that has never been done before using a strictly traditional approach (hard to estimate task durations)
6. Resource Scoping FPGA Different versions of Nios II Software IP Blocks Internal Power Supply Outsourcing Consultants Other items considered for design
7. Code Repository Used TortoiseSVN for Project Version Control Directory Structure: C Code C Scripts C Test RTL Code RTL Scripts RTL Test Documentation This Directory Structure Supports Reusability
8. Code Reviews We did not implement formal code reviews We collaborated between team members for writing and testing code
9. Benefits of RTL and C Coding Guidelines Makes Code More Readable Makes Code More Reusable Makes Code More Portable Increases Productivity of Code Reviews Allows Auto-Documentation (Doxygen)
10. IP Design and Reuse IP Component Reuse saves time in a project Component Reusability should be paramount in a design Reusability brings the product to market faster
11. Hardware to Software Interface A register map is a listing of all the memory registers used in the project, and their address The register map is used by everyone from design to layout to verification engineers This makes it important to create the map early in the project The register map can be created manually, or there is software available to automate the process
14. Lessons Learned Don’t wait until the last minute to add documentation Read the datasheets for little “Easter eggs” which could delay progress Divide tasks more evenly between team members
15. Roadblocks We struggled to re-create last quarter’s touch screen interface We struggled to learn how to use all the project tracking tools effectively We struggled with the opto-isolator interface between the MCP3909 and the FPGA The SPI interface was odd to work with
16. Conclusions We successfully interfaced with the MCP3909 Evaluation Board We successfully displayed the measured data on the 16x2 character LCD This was a fun project with numerous practical applications With more time, we would implement a wireless data transfer, uploading the data to the Internet, or both Also with more time we were going to try to implement Ethernet to connect the device to the internet and communicate to websites like: “Google Powermeter,” and “Microsoft hohm;” to relay instant power usage for our area.
