Team Contract Fulfillment :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

Team Contract Fulfillment

Description

The team contract fulfillment assignment is a document describing whether the obligations set out in the team contract were met. Project groups should write no more than 2 pages double spaced. This document should have five brief sections each of which corresponds to a section in the team contract:

Project Goals: This section should begin with a short description of what you planned on building at the start of the semester. What were the goals of your project? You should elaborate on whether these goals were met.

Expectations: This section should address whether the expectations set in the “Expectations” section  in your team contract were met. Essentially, were the ground rules your team set out at the start of the semester followed?
Roles: At the beginning of the course, your team outlined roles as part of the team contract. Please describe what your roles are now and–if your roles changed–how they evolved as the semester progressed. Did you assign a leader? Were pieces of the project tackled as a group or individually? Why?
Agenda: How did your team make decisions about the project? How were goals set? When an issue with the project came up, how did your team plan to fix it?
Team Issues: This section should cover team-related issues that your group encountered during the course. What sort of problems did you run into? How were they dealt with? Was the process set out in the team contract followed?  In hindsight could you have done things differently to have a better team experience?

Requirements and Grading

Each section is worth 4 points. Points are awarded based on thoroughness. A section that adequately addresses the questions above will receive 4 points.

Submission and Deadlines

The team contract fulfillment document is a group assignment and should be submitted on canvas before the deadline listed on the Calendar.

Automatic Piano Tuner

Joseph Babbo, Colin Wallace, Riley Woodson

Automatic Piano Tuner

Featured Project

# Automatic Piano Tuner

Team Members:

- Colin Wallace (colinpw2)

- Riley Woodson (rileycw2)

- Joseph Babbo (jbabbo2)

# Problem

Piano tuning is a time-consuming and expensive process. An average piano tuning will cost in the $100 - $200 range and a piano will have to be retuned multiple times to maintain the correct pitch. Due to the strength required to alter the piano pegs it is also something that is difficult for the less physically able to accomplish.

# Solution

We hope to bring piano tuning to the masses by creating an easy to use product which will be able to automatically tune a piano by giving the key as input alongside playing the key to get the pitch differential and automatically turning the piano pegs until they reach the correct note.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1 - Motor Assembly

A standard tuning pin requires 8-14 nm of torque to successfully tune. We will thus need to create a motor assembly that is able to produce enough torque to rotate standard tuning pins.

## Subsystem 2 - Frequency Detector/Tuner

The device will use a microphone to gather audio measurements. Then a microprocessor processes the audio data to detect the pitch and determine the difference from the desired frequency. This can then generate instructions for the motor; direction to turn pegs and amount to turn it by.

## Subsystem 3 - User Interface/Display Panel

A small but intuitive display and button configuration can be used for this device. It will be required for the user to set the key being played using buttons on the device and reading the output of the display. As the device will tune by itself after hearing the tone, all that is required to display is the current key and octave. A couple of buttons will suffice to be able to cycle up and down keys and octaves.

## Subsystem 4 - Replaceable Battery/Power Supply

Every commercial product should use standard replaceable batteries, or provide a way for easy charging. As we want to develop a handheld device, so that the device doesn’t have to drag power wires into the piano, we will need a rechargeable battery pack.

# Criterion For Success

The aim of the Automatic Piano Tuner is to allow the user to automatically tune piano strings based on a key input alongside playing a note. We have several goals to help us meet this aim:

- Measure pitch accurately, test against known good pitches

- Motor generates enough torque to turn the pegs on a piano

- Tuner turns correctly depending on pitch

- Easy tuning of a piano by a single untrained person

Project Videos