S24 Startup Guide - Meghan Dang
- Daniel Puratich
- Meghan Dang
Welcome!
We’re happy to have you on board as our new Electrical Engineering co-op! To aid your first few days here at WARG, we have created a startup guide that you can refer to to see what your project will be, key contacts, and some steps you’ll have to take.
About WARG
The University of Waterloo Aerial Robotics Group (abbreviated as ‘WARG’) is a student design team affiliated with the Sedra Student Design Centre at the University of Waterloo.
The principal objectives of WARG are:
To enable students to learn about robotics and develop innovative new aerial robotic solutions through collaboration and non-classroom instruction.
To expose students to all aspects of project management, fundraising, marketing and exposure to various mechanical, electrical and controls challenges.
To provide an opportunity for students (of all backgrounds) and experts to work together in an effort to accomplish these goals.
This year, we are seeking to meet these objectives through attendance at the AEAC student competition. WARG is currently developing a quadcopter aircraft (project Pegasus) to compete in this year’s competition at the end of May.
The Electrical subteam is responsible for architecting, designing, integrating, and validating off the shelf and custom electronics designs into our competition airframe, testing airframes, and associated ground station hardware.
This Spring 2024 term, the team is focusing on our system integration ramp up to competition in May and will then begin designing system architecture for our next competition roughly a year out. This co-op is intended to be developing projects longer term than just this competition cycle and will be decoupled from system level engineering in favor of electrical board (PCBA) level engineering.
Administrative Details
Key Contacts
Manager: @Daniel Puratich
Go-to for all administrative concerns regarding your internship here.
Your manager will be the person you interact with daily and guide you through your internship.
Team Directors: @Daniel Puratich @Megan Spee @Nathan Green
The team directors are those who run the WARG organization as a whole. They are in charge of the overall operation of the team and can be reached at any time over discord should the need arise.
Mentor: @Nolan Haines
Go-to for anything you don’t want to bring up to your manager.
Present for engineering support.
Waterloo Works Support: Mia Weston
For any waterloo works and co-op credit related questions.
SDC Support: Graeme & Prof Teertstra
Graeme Adair: gadair@uwaterloo.ca
Peter Teertstra: pmteerts@uwaterloo.ca
Directors of all SDC teams in Waterloo
If you aren’t comfortable talking to anyone at WARG about something with your co-op these contacts are available to you.
Pre-first-day items
Joining Discord
The team uses discord to communicate!
#introductions a few days ahead of your start dateSafety Training
Before your first day, please complete the following courses:
You can access these courses by going to Learn, selecting “Self Registration,” and enrolling in these courses.
Some of these you may have already completed for other university courses and are required by the university to keep you safe in our bay!
Joining Management Softwares
We use Asana to manage tasks and timelines and Confluence to handle documentation. You should use your uwaterloo.ca email. If you do not have access to these services, ask your manager to provide you with an invite.
Meeting Cadence
You will have a 1:1 with your manager once daily. The time will be coordinated in the team’s google calendar.
Your subteam, Electrical, meets on a weekly basis (meeting times are scheduled at the start of the term). You’ll also be expected to attend general meetings, and other relevant meetings as needed. Our meeting schedule can be found in our google calendar in #info .
AEAC sync and leads meeting are optional meetings where we discuss system integration and admin for the team respectively. Flight tests occur sporadically, generally on weekends. You are welcome to join these, but are not required to.
First Week Items
Next Steps
Project specifics will be discussed during the first week and tracked with tasks in Asana, but the initial outline I have in mind is:
Protection circuit additions to existing buck converter PCBAs
Zeropilot PCBA next rev: new micro, replace power electronics
Gemini PCBA improvements
Tracking Antenna PCBA improvements
Appendix
Useful links
What do all the acronyms mean? Check it out here: https://uwarg-docs.atlassian.net/l/cp/D2oP5Vjw