SECON

From Ece

Prospective members

If you are an undergraduate that would like to join future SECON teams, send an e-mail to Dr. Jones indicating your interest. Dr. Jones will review the applications in the beginning of the spring semester preceding that year's competition and select 8 members.

Applicants for SECON 2011:

• Chris Butler
• Kristin Sharp
• Michael Helmbrecht
• Jason Warren
• Chris Nichols
• Bradford Thornton
• Erin Tate
• Amos Christiansen

Applicants for SECON 2012:

• Ryan N.
• Chris Butler
• Matt Williams
• Jackson Knott
• Matt Watts

Purchasing

All purchases must comply with MSU policy. First, determine if the item(s) to be purchased are equipment or not:

• Any items which cost over $1000 are equipment.
• Items on the Equipment Exception List are equipment.
• All other items are supplies, not equipment.

Purchasing supplies (most items under $1000)

To purchase items for use in the research group:

1. Obtain the Mississippi State Procurement Card from Dr. Jones, signing and dating the sign out sheet in Dr. Jones' office.
2. Use the card to purchase the item, either on-line or from a local retailer. Numbers which have rubbed off: Wal-mart Tax ID # 98972; Office Depot Tax ID #24841884; MS Tax Exempt #27-65-105; FEIN 64-6000819.
   • Before paying, check the receipt to verify that no tax was charged. MSU is a tax-free institution and will NOT reimburse any purchases which include taxes.
   • Make sure the receipt shows the total amount spent, including shipping and handling (for on-line orders). A receipt without a total will NOT be reimbursed by MSU.
3. Post the receipt on SVN at svn+ssh://yourUserId@yavin.ece.msstate.edu/data/www/htdocs/courses/design/2008/secon/svn/receipts and updated the Inventory.xls spreadsheet with the purchase information. The PDF file name should be yyyy-mm-dd_vendorname_details.pdf.
   • For an on-line receipt, convert the file to a PDF then post it on the receipts area on SVN. Print a hard copy and bring it to Dr. Jones' office, placing it under the door if he is absent.
   • For paper receipts, scan the receipt as a PDF then post it in the receipts area. Bring the ORIGINAL receipt (a copy or printed scan is NOT acceptable) to Dr. Jones' office, placing it under the door if he is absent.
4. Return the Pro Card immediately after completing the purchase. Complete the sign out sheet with the date returned.

Purchasing equipment (all items over $1000)

To purchase an item for in the research group that are over $1000:

1. A P.O. request form must be filled out for each company that an item over $1000 is being purchased from. The PO_template.doc is found on SVN at svn+ssh://yourUserId@yavin.ece.msstate.edu/data/robotics/svn/Papers/Purchase Orders.
2. A quote for each item being purchasing will be needed (Note: Quotes typically expire 30 days after receiving them, the quote must be valid. Also, not that when the quote and PO are sent to Mrs. Ellen Harpole she may or may not get to type it into the system that day so if the quote will expire in 1 or 2 days it is safer to get another one or may have problems getting the P.O. approved).
3. Once a quote is received and the P.O. request form is filled out, email both to Mrs. Harpole at ellen@ece.msstate.edu
4. A copy of the P.O. request form as well as the quote should be placed on svn at svn+ssh://yourUserId@yavin.ece.msstate.edu/data/robotics/svn/Papers/Purchase Orders

Addresses

The shipping address is:

Dr. Jones (NOT your name -- packages addressed to students are not always delivered)

Dept. of ECE

309 Simrall hall

406 Hardy Road

Mississippi State, MS 39762

The billing address is:

Bryan Jones

P.O. Box 5307

Mississippi State, MS 39762

Accounts

If you are placing an order and the website requests that you create an account, just use the information above for the account but use your own email address for the contact information. This is in case the website sends a confirmation email requesting you to validate the creation of the account. The list below includes some websites that request its customers to create an account before making orders. Please add on to the list and include any specific details to be aware of.

SparkFun - does not send confirmation email, but does send order information over email.

Subversion Repositories

We have a protected Subversion repository for the website, source code, receipts, documents in development, etc.

Repository URLs

There are now two repositories in use. They are both located in the svn/ folder of our web space.

The code repository URL is:

svn+ssh://NETID@svn.ece.msstate.edu/data/www/htdocs/courses/design/2008/secon/svn/code/

The receipts repository URL is:

svn+ssh://NETID@svn.ece.msstate.edu/data/www/htdocs/courses/design/2008/secon/svn/receipts/

Shortening the URL

One way you can shorten this is to use a soft link in your home directory. Log in to Yavin and, while still in your home directory, type:

ln -s /data/www/htdocs/courses/design/2008/secon secon

But replace secon with whatever you want to call the link. Then, your URL would be (if you used secon as the link name):

svn+ssh://NETID@svn.ece.msstate.edu/home/NETID/secon/svn/code

Be sure to replace BOTH instances of NETID.

Additionally, you can save your connection settings as a PuTTY session and use that session name in the URL.

For example:

svn+ssh://SVNConn/home/NETID/secon/svn/code/

This may seem like a trivial issue, but it can be handy later on when trying to pick from among multiple URLs in your TortoiseSVN history.

Code Repository

The mcu project in the repository is (or will be) structured as follows:

\- code     <-------------------- Real folder name (repository root)
   \- trunk
   |  \- mcu
   |  |  \- pic24lib  <---------- PIC24 Support Library
   |  |  |  \+ common
   |  |  |  \+ include
   |  |  \- esos   <------------- ESOS Ported for the PIC24HJ64GP502
   |  |  |  \+ include
   |  |  |  \+ src
   |  |  \- robotics  <---------- Thomas's robotics library
   |  |  |  \+ common
   |  |  |  \+ include
   |  |  \- secon09   <---------- Main SECON09 code
   |  |  |  \- include   <------- Header files for all modules
   |  |  |  |  |- drive.h  <----- Ex: drive module header
   |  |  |  \- src       <------- Source files for all modules
   |  |  |  |  |- drive.c  <----- Ex: drive module source
   |  |  |  |- secon09.c     <--- Master SECON09 user program
   |  |  |  |- secon09.mcp   <--- Master SECON09 MPLAB project file
   |  |  \- test_bench    <------ Subsystem/module test code & projects
   |  |  |  |- drive_test.c  <--- Ex: code to test the drive module
   |  |  |  |- drive_test.mcp <-- Ex: project for drive test
   |  |  |  |- lift_test.c
   |  |  |  |- lift_test.mcp
   |  |  \+ bootloader  <-------- Bootloader app & hex files
   |  |  \+ lkr   <-------------- PIC-model specific linker scripts
   \- branches
       \- esos_external  <----- Dr. Bruce's esos updates, port to trunk
       |  \+ common
       |  \+ include
       \- robotics_external <-- Thomas's robotics updates, if we diverge
          \+ common
          \+ include

Policies

• The files secon09/secon.c and secon09/secon09.mcp will be used for the master code, and should not be edited without some communication first.
• All modules should have a .h and .c file, stored in secon09/include and secon09/src, respectively.
• All module test code should be placed in test_bench/. Exactly two files per module should appear there:
  • modulename_test.c
  • modulename_test.mcp
• When adding files to MPLAB projects, use relative paths
  • Ask Jeff for instructions for doing this.
• pic24lib/ and esos/ should not be edited directly, except by Jeff (for bringing in updates to those libraries)
• Updates in the ZIP archive to Dr. Bruce's ESOS code shall be added to the esos branch, and then such changes shall be (carefully) ported into our trunk

C Coding Standards

Write good code. More or less follow the C Coding Std. from Embedded Systems. We may switch to Doxygen documentation in the spring.

Most importantly:

• Give meaningful names to variables and functions
• Use data type prefixes on variables names (e.g. u16_ticks)
• #define all constants - no "magic numbers"