@Alison Thompson

• New members were onboarded quickly and we seemed to get a few pretty involved

  • Having PMs help with onboarding was suuuuuper helpful

• More open ended tasks than normal

@Smile Khatri

• Lots of new members and we had engaging tasks.

• Good mentorship happening from leads/PMs to newer members

• Work sessions started to get better near the end of term once we had more machining tasks which people really enjoyed

@Sohee Yoon

• Quick integration for new members (e.g., scheduling bootcamp reviews)

• For a lot of PDM issues, Smile and Nathan were available right away to help out on discord and in-person

• We had a good amount of tasks this term that varied in skill level and got a lot of members interested (e.g., some task had multiple people interested in it and that encouraged collaboration too)

@Evan Janakievski

• A decent amount of new members

• Good progress on competition tasks

• I think good support from PMs this term

  • Noticed the impact a lot more this term being onsite compared to last term

@Nathaniel Li

• Tasks were interesting for new members

• In my own personal experience, PDM issues helped me teach new members best practices for using PDM (very ironic)

• Members were open to collaborating, especially with new members which helped with larger projects/tasks

@Camilo Artigas Alos

• Great collaboration on most projects, I would say comp was the best. The integration between both payloads and landing gear went great.

• I really enjoyed the machining work sessions and flight tests were great as well.

• I received all the support I needed from any PM that assigned me any given task.

@Conall Kingshott

• Onboarding seemed a lot smoother

• Bringing up PMs and building out leadership team

• Comp tasks, landing gear and payload finished on-time

• Managed to give tasks that weren’t just “filler” and actually matter

@Alison Thompson

• Instill more sense of ownership and urgency for people working on tasks

• Include more context for what we’re working on, goals for the term, and long terms goals as part of onboarding and the beginning of the term

• Everyone should speak up if something isn’t looking like done on time

• Prioritize open-ended tasks where it makes sense

• Get more mech members to flight tests

• Scoping projects properly

• Encourage people to brainstorm first before providing own thoughts/suggestions

• Moving work session during weekdays

  • class schedules overlap

  • Trying out weekday work sessions - maybe during the summer term. Doesn’t make sense for winter, Evan’s on co-op.

  • Doing things outside of work sessions

@Smile Khatri

• Stay more on top of projects, especially Eclipse (m also guilty of this)

  • If there’s no progress being made on certain tasks, we need to call the shot and just get it done or have a conversation w/ whoever is assigned

• More engaging work sessions. At the start of the term, work sessions were pretty dead. Idk, maybe we need to create a more fun environment to be in to work (idk how to do this)

• Don’t be afraid of having tough conversations early on. If you think something won’t get done by EOT, we should talk about it early enough to create a plan.

• When we have new members, I think we should develop a presentation or invest some time in mech meeting to introduce the team to new members, inform them about all the projects going on and what they can contribute to. I had multiple people who had no idea what projects were going on, or even what the team was doing. I remember autonomy did a presentation at their first meeting, maybe we could do something similar to get everyone (including old and new members) on the same page.

• PMs to be more involved at work sessions

• Need to use the mech deadlines calendar more, I don’t think I opened it once during November (this might be just me)

• After people finish their bootcamp, at the end take around 10 mins to explain the different projects - Conall did this

  • Better to do it at bootcamp reviews

  • No one’s interested in listening to presentations

  • Explaining the big pictures of projects

  • Everyone kind of forgot to do this

• Confluence database for task tracking → Be on the lookout for calendar feature soon? Feature Request: Calendar View said they were working on it in March 2024

•  

@Sohee Yoon

• I agree with Smile, like PMs should be more involved at work sessions (I’m guilty of this) and flight tests (for me)

• More communication between PMs if we’re working on the same project (e.g., Eclipse). I know when I got sick, I should’ve communicated with one of you to help out with the Fuselage that way we wouldn’t be behind for the Fuselage

• This is more for me but as a PM I realized I have a lot of responsibility for the design of parts so I have to be thorough in planning designs and consider the big picture. Planning ahead of time early would make it a lot easier later on

• I think when we’re planning out projects and deadlines, we should consider the backlog of tasks near midterms and exams. I think we did consider it but still ended up pushing a few CAD reviews

@Evan Janakievski

• Scope of Eclipse changing over time to help speed it up, wasn’t as impactful as we thought it would be because of how far behind it was

  • For future projects, need to definitely come up with full idea before designing so everyone is on the same page, not multiple people working on parts that will relate but not designed to be integrated

• Documentation can definitely improve

• Work sessions could be improved

• More communication

  • Within Mech, but also team as a whole

    • Noticed EE did not give most up to date board or all constraints for some tasks

• Encourage people to fill out decision docs

  • explain why they are helpful and introduce in bootcamp

• Annoy people for constraints

@Nathaniel Li

• As Smile mentioned, staying on top of projects was lacking. Some things to consider:

•  

•  

•  

• Checking on progress more often

• Setting a “progress update” date along with the deadline so members

• As a PM, I noticed that I spent a lot more time (than expected) chasing people down for updates/responses

  • Should we have guidelines for reassigning work or just going off vibes?

• Work session engagement could def be higher (including myself)

• I second what Evan mentioned about fully scoping projects before starting them

• For scheduling, it’s worth noting that:

  • As a term progresses, expect that active member numbers will decrease

  • Buildup of tasks around midterms and finals should be planned ahead more

• Force engagement at mech meetings

• Open to trying ‘progress update’ dates

@Camilo Artigas Alos

• As Smile mentions, documenting work sessions would be beneficial. We can have a PM do a confluence doc for each, so we remember what we couldn’t accomplish and set realistic expectations for the next work session.

• I believe one of the factors of low work session attendance (at least in the beginning) was the fact they ran at the same time as flight tests, if we could schedule around that (which I think we did towards the end) would probably increase work session attendance.

• I think creating a more in-depth PDM troubleshooting guide on confluence would be benefitial. I’m mostly thinking about it in terms of a flow chart, if you get this error do this, if this doesn’t work try this and so on.

• I believe that if PMs/Leads need help with anything they should feel free to reach out to other PMs for help on a given task or project, I feel like this would’ve helped for Eclipse.

• More socials would be nice to keep the mech team as a community. We should also work on keeping it engaging and as Smile mentioned, a BOT presentation could go a long way.

• I also agree with Evan’s point of fleshing out the big picture of a project before diving into it.

• Work sessions already kinda built into mech notes

  • Try updating meeting minutes w/ work session updates

  • Recap in #mech-announcements

  • documentation might be too much for people after a long day of work

  • quick bullet points

• Ask leads, PMs, or members that you think will get a task done for help if needed

@Conall Kingshott

• Need to be more firm on deadlines, especially with non-comp tasks (Eclipse, tracking antenna)

  • We aren't getting this pressure externally because we are a “fast” sub-team so we need to do it internally.

  • This means pulling people off tasks if they aren’t getting it done

• Related, review early and often, especially for newer members' tasks. Also for projects, even if its not done, its a good way to get a sanity check on how far along the project actually is and takes the load off of the PM.

• Would like to see more people manufacturing and assembling drones. I still kind of do a lot of this (assembly specifically) but I don’t know how to transfer that knowledge.

• Spelling of Camillllllllllllo’s name 💀

• Thank you Coonnalll - Camillo

@Alison Thompson

@Smile Khatri

• More organized work sessions? Like we just announce what we’ll work on at mech meeting, but sometimes we don’t get half the stuff done or just end of forgetting about it (maybe a me issue idk). Maybe a document that notes down what’ll get done at the work session, have the sessions be more organized.

• follow the list from mech meeting

• bullet points of summary after work sessions, send in mech-announcements

• Giving people a run down of projects during their bootcamp

@Sohee Yoon

@Evan Janakievski

• Work sessions need to become more involved and more organized. Need to make sure things are ready maybe a week and a half in advance

  • Do we want to do more drawings for parts, so they are ready whenever needed?

• Projects need to have a general idea/design from the start, not iterated upon and have integration be a struggle

• Are we able to have a read-only account for PDM that all members can access on bay computer?

• People usually just wanna look at a screenshot

@Nathaniel Li

@Camilo Artigas Alos

@Smile Khatri

Eclipse

• Noting down what’s left to be done and developing a plan to make it happen early next term.

@Smile Khatri

IMACS

• Discuss w/ Nathan regarding the current project. Does he want it done by mid next term?

@Camilo Artigas Alos

PDM Documentation

• Update & improve Common PDM Issues and Solutions - Mechanical - WARG

@Alison Thompson

Comp payloads

• keep on top of both getting done and ready for Dec 14th flight

• ground testing before then

• Figure out something to put in the barrel

@Alison Thompson

Comp frame

• Bottom plate needs to waterjet and replaces

• clamping arm block replacement

@Evan Janakievski

Flight Test

• Write flight test cards for Dec 14 test

@Sohee Yoon

Fuselage

• Look into the next steps since CAD has been finalized; possibly start drawing out the panel shape

@Sohee Yoon

Tracking Antenna

• Finalize CAD and start ordering parts for rev2

Comp 2025

• Frame

• Payload

• Electronics Cases

• Weather proofing?

Ground Station

• Tracking Antenna

• IMACS Groundstation

Fixed Wing

• Frame + Integration

• Wings

• Fuselage

• Tail

• Landing Gear

VTOL

• Frame + Integration

• Wings

• Propulsion

• Fuselage

• Tail

• Landing Gear

Comp 2025 Frame

Comp 2025 Payload

@Nathaniel Li

Comp 2025 Electronics Cases

@Nathaniel Li @Sohee Yoon

Tracking antenna

IMACS Ground station

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

Fixed wing frame + integration

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

Fixed wing wings

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li @Sohee Yoon

Fixed wing fuselage

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

Fixed wing tail

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

Fixed wing landing Gear

Composites Development

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

VTOL frame + integration

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

VTOL wings

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

VTOL propulsion

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li @Sohee Yoon

VTOL fuselage

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li

VTOL wing tail

@Camilo Artigas Alos @Nathaniel Li @Sohee Yoon

VTOL Landing Gear