Week 8 Blog Update

Hello again!

Week 8 has been a huge week for project development!

Week 8 has marked the final stage of project strategy, as identified in the HCE process diagram. We have finalised the stakeholders requirements and further developed a range of sub-requirement levels required to achieve each major need.

Moving forward, we have spent this week attempting to translate stakeholder needs into a high level functional breakdown. This process involves walking through the how the device will interact with the end user, and more specifically, the functional steps required at a system level that we as the engineers will need to begin designing.

We have made significant headway conceptualising the system architecture. This includes a high level functional breakdown and functional allocation as well as brainstorming the interactions of lower level device and software functions. This process has helped us begin to visualise how the device is going to have to operate and given us more understanding of the processes and steps that we will need to take in the coming weeks to stay on track.

Attached below is a high level functional breakdown of the device as a whole. In the coming weeks, as we gain more understanding of the system architecture and the inner workings of a large language model (LLM), we hope to break these individual functions down further.

Image descriptions are found at the bottom of the page. Please refer to Image 1.

On a final note, Abigail has managed to her hands on RaspberryPi camera for the team and taken the time to have an initial attempt at running some facial recognition code. It is still very much in the early works although incredibly exciting to have some implementation features in progress!!! The image described can be seen below. Image descriptions are located under the photo.

Image descriptions are found at the bottom of the page. Please refer to Image 2.

[Image 1: The image displays a functional block diagram of a device titled "F0: Ver Device." It shows various interconnected functions and inputs/outputs that represent the workflow or process within the system. The diagram is spread out horizontally across the image and consists of boxes connected with lines that indicate the flow of processes and information.

Starting from the left, there are four separate input blocks labeled "Energy," "User," "Light," and "Sound," each with arrows pointing to the right. These arrows are labeled "I1:1," "I4:1," and "I4:2" respectively, indicating different types of input to the system.

The central part of the diagram features several function blocks labeled "F1 & F2: Receive and store Energy," "F4: Observe Surroundings," "F10: Pre-process environmental data," "F6: Process Observations," "F5: Store Data," and "F7: Generate feedback for user." Each function block is connected through labeled arrows, suggesting the data flow between the functions. The labels contain the notations "IC2:1," "IC4:1," "IC10:1," and others, designating interconnections.

To the far right, there are two output blocks titled "Haptic feedback" and "Audio feedback," indicating the types of feedback provided to the user. These are connected to a function block "F8: Provide user feedback." An additional function block "F9: Update user profiling" is shown connected through "IC7:3" and "IC9:1" to other blocks, representing a user profiling element within the system.

The diagram is presented in grayscale with white blocks and black text, set on a light gray background. The graphical elements such as boxes and lines are in clean, straight edges, maintaining a minimalist and technical aesthetic, conveying the logical structure of the device’s functions.

Alt-text: Block diagram of the 'Ver Device' illustrating the flow of processes from energy, user, light, and sound inputs, through functions such as energy storage, observation, data processing, feedback generation, to haptic and audio feedback outputs.

Text Transcription: F0: Ver Device

• Energy (I1:1 → F1 & F2: Receive and store Energy)

• User

• Light (I4:1 → F4: Observe Surroundings)

• Sound (I4:2 → F4: Observe Surroundings)

• F1 & F2: Receive and store Energy (IC2:1 → F10: Pre-process environmental data)

• F4: Observe Surroundings (IC4:1, IC4:2 → F10: Pre-process environmental data)

• F10: Pre-process environmental data (IC10:1, IC10:2 → F6: Process Observations)

• F6: Process Observations (IC6:2, IC6:3 → F5: Store Data | IC5:1 → F7: Generate feedback for user)

• F5: Store Data (IC5:1 → F7: Generate feedback for user | IC7:3 → F9: Update user profiling | IC9:1, IC9:2 → F7: Generate feedback for user)

• F7: Generate feedback for user (IC7:1 → F8: Provide user feedback)

• F8: Provide user feedback (O8:1 → Haptic feedback | O8:2 → Audio feedback)

• F9: Update user profiling

• Haptic feedback

• Audio feedback]

[Image 2: The image is a group photo of six individuals standing together indoors. The atmosphere appears casual with all members wearing informal clothing. The photo contains a mix of men and women, most likely colleagues, posing for the camera with friendly postures. A notable detail is that there are yellow square and rectangular labels with text such as "Mouth," "Nose," "Eyes," and measurements like "Nose to Mouth: 2.59 cm" superimposed over their facial features, resembling facial recognition tags used in digital image processing. The background features a plain white wall. The presence of the facial recognition boxes suggests some form of analysis or representation of technology on the faces of the subjects, which may imply the context of the photograph is related to a project involving facial recognition or image processing.]