Patent Research

Progress:
Tasks Accomplished: Successfully started the patent research to find projects similar to ours, or projects that might be the basis for some of the drone's components. We shared a Google Docs spreadsheet to list all the patents that are relevant to our project (see picture below). Moreover, because our project encompasses many categories/projects, we are dividing the research into different classifications, so that each group member can find patents that relate to different components of our project. Group members are researching the following topics:
Gui: Containers/Receptacles
Vasil: Transportation/Delivery
Arianna: Flying vehicles/robots
Ben: Wireless connection to robots (via apps or websites)
Sebastian: Drones

Problems Solved: We were successful in dividing the research into manageable portions for each member, so that research can go faster and so that it can be more efficient.

Lessons Learned: This week, we gained new skills/knowledge regarding patent research and research in general. We are now able to find a patent that relates to our project and go through similar patents so that we can see the extent to which the category has been developed, making it easier to see what we need to do for our own project.

New Ideas: For now, our project idea remains mostly untouched. The main idea that came up through the research, which we might implement into our project, is the idea of a container with a sliding tray. This reduces the space that it occupies when it is closed while still allowing the container to hold reasonable amount of content.

Problem:
The main issue right now is finding patents that are closely related to our project. We are finding many patents that do relate to our project, but not in a very significant way, which makes it a little harder to compare our project to them in a way that might cause changes in our original idea. Besides this problem, everything is running smoothly. However, our original schedule has been pushed back by about a week to allow space for this patent research. When our project officially begins, we will be researching the different components that we will use and how to implement them in our project. In other words, we will be researching the materials/software/hardware that we need in order to complete the project.

Plan:
The plan right now to solve the patent issue is just to research more patents that are similar to the ones we are finding. That way, we will (hopefully) come across patents that have a close relationship to our project or to certain components in our project.
The issue regarding the delay in our project schedule can be easily solved. The project remains as it is described in our Gantt Chart, but everything will be pushed back a week. However, in an ideal situation, where no major problems arise, we will be able to finish certain tasks before the scheduled date. This is, of course, in an ideal situation.
In the coming week, Gui and Vasil will be researching software that will be used in our project, while Arianna, Ben, and Sebastian will be researching the drone that will be used, along with the components required for the drone to complete its objective (sensors, charging station, container, etc.).