Timecachers (2 page)

UAT, User Acceptance Testing, was Overhill Engineering’s specialty. The company’s principal value-add was having both the technical acumen to understand the complexities of development engineering and still test for LCU. Least Competent User was simply a politically correct term for making sure a highly technical device could be operated by the dumbest person on the planet.

The phone call was from Edward Odan, PhD., president of Time-Space Obversions (TSO), Inc., a greater Boston area engineering company that had been formed by Dr. Odan, in conjunction with MIT’s department of physics.

Odan’s slight New England accent was just enough to give his voice a scholarly inflection, yet not Bostonian enough to sound haughty or pompous. When Odan spoke, Adam got the feeling he was listening to a college professor, which, in fact, he was.

The company was developing a highly advanced product that promised to be “the next big thing” in handheld navigation devices. “What we are looking for is someone to do the field UAT testing for us,” Odan explained. “You see, our engineering group is highly advanced in theory and design, but we need someone with your particular professional and personal background to conduct the user application testing of this product.”

“I understand the need for my real-world testing services, but what is it about my personal background that’s relevant?” asked Adam.

“Well, for this product we need someone not only familiar with hardware and software testing methodologies, but someone who also has a very diverse aptitude for several types of outdoor adventure activities, you see, including backpacking, orienteering, and rock climbing, as well as survival skills and some practical knowledge of early American history. The background research we conducted on you turned up a good mixture of the types of skills we need for this testing.”

Adam thought he’d better carefully scrutinize the personal information he put on his LinkedIn profile from now on. “I’m not sure I understand the need for someone with my outdoors experience, and knowledge of early American history? Do you mean the colonial period?”

“Pre-colonial as well—but don’t concern yourself with that at this point. Your historical knowledge could be helpful in analyzing certain peculiar reactions of the device. Your team will be required to conduct most of your testing in remote, rugged, terrestrial areas—wilderness areas in the Southeast to be precise.” Odan cleared his throat and changed the subject.

“I’d like to send you the functional specifications to look over and a non-disclosure agreement. I can promise you that this will offer you one of the most unique testing experiences of your career. The details of the test plan will be up to you, but you will need to set aside one full week of testing time in addition to the test plan development. One week of exclusive testing time, and a team of three to four resources with skills similar and complementary to your own. You may choose your own team of course, but they must clear our background check. I can offer you generous compensation--triple your usual fee, in fact, plus reimbursement for any expenses you incur.”

Money wasn’t the only consideration, although Adam had to admit that such a lucrative contract was attractive, and the timing for access to his best engineers was perfect. He could afford to be selective about the jobs he took, having managed his finances well enough to cover his own basic living expenses for quite a while, but he had been promising his contractors there would be new work coming along for them soon. At present, he was the only fulltime employee of his company. Several of the engineers who contracted to him had inquired about fulltime positions, and he hoped that someday he could offer them permanent jobs.

His extracurricular activities were enjoyable, but they didn’t do much to grow his company. He had promised himself at the onset of this venture that it would not become an obsession; he would be selective about which jobs to take and leave plenty of time to enjoy life. He soon discovered that keeping a viable business proved to be more time-consuming than he imagined. Perhaps this opportunity with Dr. Edward Odan of TSO Devices, Inc. would allow him to do a little of both, and give his company the financial boost it needed to hire a few fulltime employees. The project was different than others his company had done, requiring the testing to be performed outside of a laboratory environment, yet it was well within his area of expertise. It certainly promised to be a fun and interesting project!

Chapter two

A
dam returned Dr. Odan’s call the same day he received the functional specification. He had already signed and faxed back the non-disclosure to TSO, Inc., but he needed a follow up for additional details and clarification of their expectations. “The theory, at least what I can understand of it, is fascinating,” Adam said into the receiver. “Using the stellar emissions from space to determine navigational positioning is ingenious, Dr. Odan,” he stated.

“Call me Ed, please—and the fundamental design is not all that novel,” Odan replied. “Man has used stars for determining his position on the planet since the ancient Greeks, and probably even before that. The ingenuity was designing a device that could receive the signals sent out by those heavenly bodies. Our primary ‘value-add’ for this technology is employing a new discovery, my discovery, of how those star emissions can be received by a micro device. Until now, radio telescopes of tremendous size were required to ‘listen’ to the stars. By receiving the star signals and syncing them to the time-constant frequency of another heavenly body like a pulsar, we can determine our exact location anywhere on the planet without the need of a supporting satellite system like NAVSTAR or Galileo that global positioning systems use. The technology is basically the same, except we don’t need satellites; we use the stars.” Odan paused a moment to let Adam absorb the significance of his last statement.

Not getting a response, he elaborated. “One of the weaknesses of the satellite GPS systems is that you can often lose the satellite signals, especially in remote areas and under heavy cover where you really need it the most. The stars are everywhere, always available, and the emissions strong enough so that is not a problem with this device, you see.” Another slight pause, then, “In fact, we’ve also discovered some interesting anomalies that may actually enhance the unit’s functionality.”

“Anomalies?” asked Adam. The word set off his internal alarm. He’d been doing testing long enough to know that usually meant serious design obstacles, and dealt with enough marketing types who tried to turn bugs into features.

“Not to worry,” Ed replied. “Nothing has been discovered that would impede development. The schedule is still on track.”

Adam was still skeptical, but he set aside his concern for now and moved on. “How far along in the development phase are you? You sent me a functional spec; have you completed a design specification?”

“We have a working prototype. Of course, the anomalies I mentioned are not part of the original design features. They turned up in our initial design testing. The necessity, at least in part, for engaging you to perform UAT testing is due to those anomalous discoveries.”

“Meaningful test results require testing to the design standards,” Adam pointed out. “I assume you want me to test the accuracy of your device against a traditional GPS receiver, but I’ll need some sort of parameters to determine if you are in range of your design goals.”

“Your assumption is only partially correct. We have already verified the accuracy of the positioning, and the testing you will be doing for us will take you beyond the range of the current GPS receivers,” Ed answered.

Adam knew that modern GPSr’s could receive from multiple satellites, and the ground-based WAAS stations improved the reliability of the system where signals were weak. Some were also augmented by land-based cellphone towers. Most of the receivers, even the consumer hand-held and automobile models, were pretty dependable. Finding places to test without GPS coverage would be a challenge.

“Let me clarify our testing needs further to you. We aren’t looking for you to do a typical software or product testing project.” Ed said. “More a field alpha-test if you will. It will be most helpful to us to have someone with your background in usability testing to provide feedback in an actual field environment.”

“I see,” said Adam haltingly, “but I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to arrange access to a spacecraft…”

“Of course not,” Ed laughed. “We only need your inputs for the land-based navigation, so all of your testing will be earthbound. For your testing parameters we will provide you with a basic testing scenario for you to execute. The scenario will have specific goals for you to accomplish using the device to guide your team. You will determine the details of how to carry out the scenario in your test plan. Since you will be using new technology, your plan will need to be flexible, and allow for impromptu adjustment of your testing strategy. The test results I am most interested in are the experiences you and your team encounter during the testing, you see, not so much the functionality and performance of the device itself. Therefore, it will be essential that you keep extensive notes of the scenario execution.”

“We always provide well-documented test results,” Adam replied, sounding a bit defensive. Alice Delvecci would be an ideal engineer for this project, he thought. While he enjoyed writing the proposals and test plans, when it came to the tedious recording of every minute detail of test results, no one was better than Alice. She would tirelessly document every step of an executed test procedure and each variation of device response through multiple regression tests. Adam was a good documenter when he had to be, but to him the redundant recording of test results was as mind-numbing as mowing the lawn.

“Undeniably,” said Ed. “In fact, your company has produced exemplary test results reports which I have examined in our background search. For this testing project, I should warn you that your engineers will likely have to resort to somewhat more manual note-taking than usual.”

Adam had already considered that possibility, since they would be testing in remote areas. However, something in Odan’s voice gave him the impression that it was going to be even more challenging than he expected.

“Ed, I’m getting the feeling that the functionality of this device and the details of the anomalies are something we need to discuss in more depth. I admit that the project is intriguing, and I am most definitely interested, but I don’t believe it will benefit either of us if I’m not adequately prepared to test your device. Since you already have a prototype, I assume you will want me to begin my testing soon. I still have to put together a test plan and select the most appropriate of my engineering resources for the team.”

“Fair enough, Adam. You will need to prepare and select your personnel quite carefully for this project, although it may require a somewhat different approach than your usual evaluation. You will have to consider physical skills as well as technical aptitude. You will also need a team that can react quickly to unplanned events and stay composed when put into unfamiliar situations.

“As for the device’s functionality, let me begin with a quick refresher of the evolution of navigational technology.

“As you are no doubt aware, celestial navigation and dead reckoning techniques have been in use for centuries. By dividing the earth using lines equally spaced running parallel to the equator, and then again with lines running at right angles to the equator, we devise a grid system known as latitude and longitude. If a navigator can determine his latitude and longitude, you see, he will know exactly where on the planet he is.

“By using Polaris, the North Star, determining latitude in the northern hemisphere is a simple matter of measuring the angle of the horizon to the North Star. That is because Polaris appears to be a stationary star that never varies more than one degree from the celestial North Pole. So Polaris is directly overhead at the North Pole, and directly on the horizon at the equator. The basic function of a sextant is to measure that angle. If a navigator measures the angle of the North Star and finds it to be ten degrees from the horizon, then he knows he is somewhere on a circle around the earth at ten degrees of geographic north latitude. When the angle is thirty-three degrees of difference to the horizon he is at north latitude thirty-three, and so on. It gets a little more complicated if you are in the southern hemisphere. Because Polaris is not visible there, the navigator must use the Southern Cross, or Crux, to calculate latitude, but the concept is basically the same. You can see that many things can cause issues using this method, since the stars are only visible at night and clouds can block your view, but it worked well when the conditions were right. Eventually other methods of determining latitude were discovered that could be used in the daytime.

“Now then, longitude was quite a different navigational problem. The lines of longitude are not equally spaced due to the curvature of the earth, you see. The closer you are to the poles, the closer the lines of longitude become. Coupled with the fact that the earth is always rotating, finding your longitude becomes quite complicated, especially if you are also in motion, such as in a sailing ship. Early navigators like Columbus had to rely on both celestial navigation and dead reckoning. Dead reckoning, in very simple terms, is using one or more fixed objects whose positions you know to determine where you are. For example, you can find your way back to your car in the mall parking lot if you take note of the number on the pole where you parked, as long as you can see the pole. A navigator can expand on this concept by taking a fix on his position, and keeping track of the speed and time he has been traveling. Using these techniques nautical navigators could get a fairly accurate idea of where they were longitudinally, but you can imagine the difficulties of determining your speed in a sailing ship on the open sea and going for days without site of any landmarks.