Hello EPICS Students and Advisors,

As the situation with COVID-19 and campus restrictions progress, we will do our best to communicate new policy as quickly as possible. The policies from the government and university are changing on a daily basis, so please pay attention to any announcements and know that any new rules issues from those bodies will take precedence over any communications from EPICS. The EPICS syllabus has been modified to mirror these policies and is available on the EPICS website.

Availability and Communication

• Advisors and staff will be available via email and will respond as soon possible (generally within 24-48 hours during business days).
• Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any issues at all. We are here to support you!
• TAs will offer virtual office hours over WebEx on their usual schedule. The call-in info is included on the Office Hours Calendar.
• The EPICS staff will communicate with the class via email announcements and the EPICS web page.
• Appointments for meetings are still possible; send requests via e-mail. Possibilities include a phone call or a virtual meeting.   
• EPICS will not be moving to Blackboard or Brightspace this semester – please continue using MyEPICS, Sharepoint, and other established tools.

Student Responsibilities
As a student in this remote learning course you will need to:

• Check your emails at least every other day. 
• Be active in the lab meetings and do your best to keep making progress on your project. This may require creative problem solving from the team to identify appropriate work that can be done remotely.
• The Learning Remotely web site can help you be successful as an online student. 
• The Syllabus is updated and is available on the EPICS website.

Lab Use

• Labs are closed. This includes the meeting rooms, computer lab, and build lab.  No work will be allowed in the lab. This is an update to the earlier policy in which we hoped to allow limited lab use.
• Materials and prototypes cannot be picked up by students from the lab.

Weekly Lab Meetings

• Lab meetings will be conducted at the usual time over GoToMeeting, unless otherwise directed by your team advisor.
• Advisors are encouraged to stay on the GoToMeeting for the two-hour lab period to allow students to come in and out for coaching.
• All team members are expected to log in remotely and participate, and attendance will be taken. Students should not report to their EPICS meeting rooms.
• If a student experiences difficulty accessing the meetings for any reason, including health issues or limitations to their access to the internet or to a device (computer, smartphone, tablet, etc.) capable of connecting to remote conferencing software, they should contact their TA and advisor promptly to negotiate an appropriate alternative. Advisors are encouraged to give students an option to provide a weekly written report in lieu of the meeting attendance if necessary.
• Project managers and Design Leads should prepare team progress, issues, and goals reports as usual for the GoToMeeting.
• Design Leads should establish communication methods for small group meetings to take place at the conclusion of the overall team’s progress reports. Students by default have WebEx through Purdue, which can be used to handle project team meetings.

Professional Development Hours (PDHs)

• All in-person PDHs during this period will either be postponed, canceled, or converted to distance-learning sessions. Monitor the Learning Activities section on MyEPICS for details on a session-by-session basis. 
• The Advisor Approved Activity form can be used to get PDH credit for any event or independent learning that matches the course outcomes.
• This form can be used to get credit for completing any of the large selection of video modules and lectures available on the EPICS YouTube page, as well as external learning opportunities.
• A new Docusign based Advisor Approved Activity form is available on the website to facilitate updates.
• Upcoming PDHs and news
• The speaker for the leadership series on 3/23 had to cancel. Fortunately, we have video from his last talk, and so that session can still be completed at any time.
• All TA led skill sessions will be moved to remote instruction. Many are expanding the number of spaces available to let more students take advantage of these opportunities. Monitor MyEPICS for updates.
• Autodesk offers free online CAD instruction for Fusion 360 and free 3-year licenses, see https://academy.autodesk.com/ for details. See attached flyer for details.
• Solidworks is also offering free student download through July. See attached flyer for details.

Team Communications

• Teams with strong existing electronic communication channels should continue to use those means for communications.
• Teams that do not have solutions in place should promptly implement Slack, GroupMe, or other real-time communication services to facilitate teamwork through this restricted period.
• All teams should communicate their preferred communication methods with their TA and advisor(s) and include them in those channels, as appropriate.

Documentation

• Individual documentation will be more critical than ever, as advisors will have less observation of team members to use as a basis for evaluation of the course outcomes.
• Notebooks will be checked and feedback given week 12 or 13.
• Students should explicitly document and comment on their achievements in the five outcomes, as described in the Individual Evaluation Rubric, in their OneNote notebooks.
• There should continue to be regular entries in the Work and Accomplishments section of the notebook, including what work you have done any why, as well as demonstrated evidence of that work. Make it easy for graders to tell what individual accomplishments you have made.
• Reflections should be logged weekly in the OneNote notebook. Consider reflecting on the current situation and how you can make the best of work conditions, and what kind of impact they may be having on your community partners.
• Project managers and design leaders should create summaries of the team meetings, including explicitly listing action items for team members and distribute them to the teams.

Community Partner Visits and Deliveries

• All in-person partner visits and deliveries are suspended during this period.
• Teams should continue to communicate and engage partners through web conferencing, phone, and email.
• Any requests for exceptions require approval by the team advisor and Pam Brown, University Coordinator.

Purchase Requests, 3D Printing, and Laser Cutting

• Items can be ordered and shipped to you remotely.
• When completing the purchase request form, please fill out the desired shipping address in the ‘Other special ordering/shipping instructions’ field to let us know where it needs to be shipped.
• We cannot guarantee that all of these orders will be approved or that shipping will be available to international addresses. Each request will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
• 3D printing should be ordered from off-campus vendors, such as https://www.shapeways.com/.  
• Laser cutting can be requested from the EPICS lab. Requests should include in an email the .stl or .dxf file to the lab staff (epics-ugta@ecn.purdue.edu), as well as the shipping address in the body of the message.
• Please be patient, as there will likely be delays in fulfilling and shipping these requests relative to normal operations as many of our UGTAs are not returning to campus.

Design Reviews

The design reviews will be moved to all-remote conferencing. Plan to use the GoToMeeting accounts outlined in this document. The reviews will continue to take place during the lab period. All teams should prepare ahead for potential disruptions in the web-conferencing technology. One way to prepare for such disruptions would be to include upload a copy of your slides to the Sharepoint site where you upload your Design Documents. 

Suggested Team Activities

Recognizing that each EPICS team is unique and that each team is in a different phase of design, each team will need to communicate with their advisor and develop a plan for how this remote time can best be used to advance their projects. Some common activities that can be done remotely for most teams include, but are not limited to:

• Benchmarking
• Benchmarking, or competitive analysis, can be performed early in the design process, or revisited late in the process to confirm that the partners needs are being met and that existing solutions do not already fulfil those needs.
• Benchmarking can be performed by starting with the list of User Needs and researching commercial products or services that fulfil some or all of the User Needs, and identifying what shortcomings those solutions have that your project can address. Be sure to document your findings.
• Risk Assessment
• Teams can conduct a DFMEA any time after specifications are developed to predict and mitigate the risks of their projects. Guidance on the DFMEA can be found in the Design Process Document or American Society for Quality.
• A remote PDH session on Risk Assessment and DFMEA may be offered to facilitate teams addressing the risks in their projects. Monitor MyEPICS for details.
• Outsourcing Research
• Teams in detailed design or near delivery phase may want to reevaluate their fabrication plans. This may include rethinking your approach to fabricating in house, or considering whether outsourcing some or all of the fabrication may be appropriate. Be sure to document your decision making process and findings.
• Needs Assessment and Project Scoping
• Teams that are expecting their projects to finish soon and are stuck waiting on final fabrication may consider initiating the Project Identification phase for the following semester. This may include holding remote conferences with the community partner to understand their needs and formulate a new project for the coming year. Your findings should be documented through a project need statement and User Needs list at minimum.

Suggested Resources

• GoToMeeting
• EPICS holds three GoToMeeting licenses, which correspond to the three classrooms. All teams should use these accounts to meet during their regularly scheduled lab time.
• Reservations for these accounts can be made outside of class hours through the Sharepoint calendars. Reservations should not be made during other team’s class periods.
• GoToMeeting can be accessed through modern browsers or through a mobile app.
• ARMS 1098B – Meeting ID: 728-093-765
• ARMS 1098C – Meeting ID: 189-368-741
• ARMS 1101 - Meeting ID: 796-116-189
• WebEx
• All Purdue students, staff, and faculty have access to WebEx, a remote meeting tool that can be used for live-group meetings.
• Update: Student accounts have been upgraded to 100 members per meeting.
• Sharepoint
• Continue to upload any documents to Sharepoint and utilize your team’s OneNote notebook to record your progress.
• Slack
• EPICS has an existing Slack with dedicated channels for each team.
• Slack is available through modern browsers, or as a mobile or desktop application.
• Team members can join using https://join.slack.com/t/epicspurdue/signup.
• Texting Apps
• GroupMe, WhatsApp, and similar mobile group texting apps are commonly used by teams.
• Consider whether these tools are appropriate for communications with team advisors, TAs, and project partners, especially if the team has a culture of using them in a very informal manner.

We want to keep projects moving for our community partners and to meet student outcomes.  We will work with each student to insure that course requirements will be met and especially for capstone students.  It is even more important to keep up on notebook entries, project work, and attend the online lab meetings. If you have any technical difficulties or limited internet, please let your TA and advisor know so you can work out alternative attendance. Stay safe, stay home, take care of your mental and physical health, and we look forward to seeing you all back soon.

Andrew Pierce
EPICS Assistant Director
Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering – Room 1209
701 West Stadium Avenue
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2045
Email: pierce1@purdue.edu
Phone: (765) 414-2107
http://www.purdue.edu/epics