For Week 11 of the HPS program, the end of the program was near. The process in designing a product includes conducting a mini build and then a main build. After the main build, reliability testing is done to make sure that the mechanical (i.e impact factors), environmental, and chemical factors are all accounted for. After the reliability testing is done, the failure analysis begins to find the root cause and any issues that came up during this testing portion, and typical failure analysis methods include a product teardown, inspections on a microscopic scale, and a sample build. Finally, after a failure analysis is complete, a design of experiment (DOE) is created in an effort to amend the apparent mishaps during the first build. The areas which could be improved during the DOE phase include a process change, a material change, or a design change. For the HPS students, the parts which they made through CAD modeling should have been received by this point, and the HPS participants were tasked with identifying any mistakes that may have occurred during the physical assembly process.
This section will consist of making conclusions based on the problems which may come up during the assembly process. So far, I have not received any of my parts, and it may be a while before that happens. At this point, I can foresee an issue with attached the printed circuit board subassembly to the base of the product, as there are no screws or pressure-sensitive adhesive options made for this to take place. Another thing I noticed a bit late is that the bottom of the PCB is not as flat as I had originally thought, so that may come up during the assembly process and mess with the port connections.