Unfortunately, my project is unable to be deployed at my school to due various reasons, like safety and security. Although this was a major setback to my plan, I have an alternative to this project. Because I can't present my RF Repeater at school I plan to simulate the "No Service" environment at one of the labs at my internship. The process will be the same, but will be at Qualcomm instead of school.
In my opinion, I think my school missed out on a big opportunity to provide cell phone coverage in dead zone areas, thus being a major complaint among staff and students. Although some reasons are understandable like, "Students should be in an environment where they can learn." providing cell phone coverage in parts of the school that don't have any will only benefit the community, like E911 calls. Some may think that cell phones take away the connection people have, however, I think of it as an extension to ones social life and academic life. I think phones provide more benefit than loss in this day and age, and with the fast paced advancement of technology, this idea only becomes better.
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Today I sent many emails regarding my meeting with staff/faculty at my school to discuss the RF Repeater project. Although this process was poorly timed I learned how necessary it was to plan ahead. I was not able to schedule a meeting with facilities, due to their busy schedule, but I am able to meet with my Dean of Students and the Director to discuss the FCC Regulations. This document describes my plan of action and goes in depth of the process. If this project is unable to be deployed, I may have to come up with an alternative.
Today I worked on creating my power point presentation to pitch my project idea to the school. I briefly go over the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Regulations and the certain types of parameters we have to follow in building this RF Repeater. I looked through the FCC Guidelines in order to get this information. This also helped me understand not only the regulations, but the delicacy wireless communication entails and how it all works in tandem with other wireless companies. Due to FCC regulations, my RF Repeater that I plan on building may not be deployable, however, I plan on using one Qualcomm can provide.
No blog post today. Enjoyed QSOL. A Qualcomm sponsored event that included music, good food, a famous soccer player, and free cake!
For the past several days of research I organized my work explaining what each component does, with its definition included. This helped me figure out what each part was on the circuit board on my blog post yesterday. I also attended a meeting regarding Qualcomm's work orders and it was very interesting to see the dynamic of how the company flowed. Much like projects at our school, Qualcomm functions the same way where groups work individually to form a product for a bigger picture. Although, groups have their ups and downs, it is the manager's job to keep the focus of work aligned with their goal. Communication is key when working with a group of people and my mentor, Sheri, did a great job of voicing her opinion on projects and understanding pitfalls other managers ran into. Thus, finding a solution and isolating unwanted variables keeps the work flow organized, making a goal easier to identify and achieve.
In order to understand the basics of how a repeater worked I looked at some schematics. Similar to how a computer works, an RF Repeater follows the same algorithm and some of its components include a controller, a duplexer, and a power supply. Thus, I made a simple schematic of the RF Repeater I opened up yesterday, so I could understand what each component did. It is still a work in progress, due to the fact that some parts don't provide enough context as to what they do, but it is important to understand how it functions, so I can make it work. I plan on adding more to this schematic once I speak with one of my mentors out at another Qualcomm site.
Today, Destin and I attended a meeting discussing different types of RF server's status such as Wildcats, Panda Systems, etc. After the meeting we looked over our project ideas and began research. Destin continued build his Unity Game alongside C Sharp, and I am conducting research on what components are in an RF Repeater and becoming familiar with the interface. Below is a Wilson RF Amplifier I disassembled and examined. This gave me a rough idea of what my repeater may look like in the future. I plan on either designing my own RF Repeater or jerry rigging my own from other Repeater models. Because I went to this internship experience last year nothing has really changed besides the new technology being built. My colleagues that work there are all still very hard working and knowledgeable in their field and they've helped me a lot in support of my project. What strikes me most about the job I'm doing is that it is very different from the internship I did last year, which was shadowing my mentors at Qualcomm. Now that I'm doing my own project, it's a brand new experience to be starting a project from scratch and working on my own. However, that hasn't stopped me from doing my best work, even if it's the first day on the job, so I'm not too worried about my project failing because I have all this support from the biggest tech industry.
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