Assignment 1a, 2017—Clarifications
13 March 2017
Clarifications of the assignment specification summarised from the LMS discussion board
• Each action takes a certain amount of time to complete, as specified in the Params class. Actions not
specified here (eg, sensing a tagged bicycle) can be assumed to complete instantaneously. You may
modify these parameter values to explore the behaviour of the system.
• As per the assignment specification, you may update the provided code as necessary for the two
required solutions. This may include adding additional attributes and methods, and modifying
existing methods.
• As per the assignment specification, all tagged bicycles must be inspected. Therefore, if there is a
tagged bicycle on segment 3 that has not yet been inspected, the belt cannot move until it is removed.
Otherwise, a belt should move when it is able to.
• As per the assignment specification, Solution 1 is not an ideal solution. You are expected to identify
any problems, but not necessarily to fix them (this is what Solution 2 is for!)
• You may assume that a tagged bicycle is only detected by the sensor once; ie, after being returned to
segment 3 (in Solution 1) a defective bicycle (that still has its tag) will not be detected again.
• There is one robot arm in the quality control system. It is capable of holding one bicycle at a time. It
is responsible for any transfer of a bicycle from a belt to the inspector or the inspector to a belt.
• The handler may use more than one consumer thread.
• You may (and should) modify the output of the simulator, using the current output as a guide, to
clearly describe all important events (eg, movement of bicycles within and between system
components). For Solution 2, it will be helpful to distinguish between the two belts.