Meeting 11-07-06

Kevin and I both have some concerns over David's commitment and willingness to take on the level of work required for this project.

To date, I feel I have done an overwhelming amount of the work we have accomplished. I wouldn't mind so much if I was beginning to get a feeling he has worked to understand the Revolution system, the Atmel MEGA1280, our requirements, or the software design. It often appears he hasn't even learned enough to ask the right questions and seems to want to minimize everything from the requirements to the design. "Let's just do it, it's so easy" is a sentiment I feel he has conveyed but then he doesn't show a clear enough undertsanding to just do it.

Maybe I have been more dominant and not as much of a team player as I should. I know I have tried to communicate the importance of studying and understanding the documentation we have available. I have tried to work over the functional and design requirements but then I'll get a comment or question which makes me wonder if he's done much reading at all.

Today, Kevin and I decided that I should talk to him. We expected meat on the bones of the design I provided for handling changes to the switches and sensors. This is really a pretty easy thing to do, especially since I had provided control flow and several algorithms, but again we don't have what we need. Kevin is preventing us from writing code until he is confident we understand enough to move forward. This can only be displayed through clear and concise design work. I will talk with David and work with him on Thursday. I will be direct on asking him if he has any questions and trying to ascertain how much he really understands. I'll lay out the expectations clearly. I think Kevin has done a pretty good job of this already but we want to make sure we haven't failed in our communications.

On Friday, 11-10-06, we need to have a solid design for the complete system. I've taken on the hardest part of the project in designing the serial IO and protocol modules. We are basically ready to go there. I understand the registers and bits that need to be manipulated to make the microcontroller do what I need it to do. There is a big learning curve here since there are many details hidden in the datasheet for control register requirements. The code needs to be written in a certain way and all bits must be at their proper setting to enable the microcontroller to perform as expected. It isn't as simple as just writing code. Kevin and I both hope we will see David step up to the plate.