Costs:
The total budget for this project is $500K. There was certain costs that affected our budget throughout the project: Capital, Energy, Time, Accuracy, R&D, and Safety Violations (MCR).
- Capital Costs: These costs incorporated the prices for stock parts, 3D-printed and laser cut parts, as well as parts extra parts bought
- Energy Costs: Each time the AEV is tested, there was a cost of $125K with an additional $500 per Joule used during final testing
- Time Costs: Every AEV test incurred a $90K charge along with a $1.5K charge per second used during final testing
- Accuracy Penalty: The final testing accuracy score was inverted and that inverse was multiplied by initial costs
- Research and Development Costs: Every hour used to test the AEV outside of normal lab hours incurred a $25K charge
- Safety Violations: Any issues that posed a safety threat were penalized based on the severity of the threat, with fires being penalized with a $50K charge, and an unmonitored AEV falling being penalized with a $15K charge
These costs were factored into the budget using the following equation (MCR):
Total Costs = (Run 1 Costs + Run 2 Costs)/2 * Accuracy Penalty + Capital Cost + R&D Costs + Safety Violations
Essentially the run costs were found by taking the two cheapest runs, finding their energy and time costs, adding them together and dividing by two, in other words, taking the average cost of the two best runs.
Grant:
Our group was awarded the 100% grant, meaning our costs for 3D printing were 100% off (they will cost nothing for us). We used this grant to print multiple iterations of our body capsule.
Final Costs
Cost for each Final Run
Seen above are the costs for each final run, with run #1 and run #2 being the cheapest runs and so was used in the total cost equation.
Capital Costs
Another large portion of the budget was set towards the capital costs of the AEV, that is the costs for physical parts and equipment which totaled $133743.
Final Cost
Incorporating the capital costs and run costs, the final total cost of the AEV was $500837.78, only $837.78 over the budget.