Introduction
For this year our main focus is our CAPSTONE Projects, and to do them we are following the Engineering Design Cycle and the a marketing process. Before beginning our project we did an introduction into engineering, then we formed team for our CAPSTONE Project, learned effective teaming and project management, brainstormed and researched different ideas, designed a logo, defined a problem, conducted market research, and made a customer survey.
Introduction into Engineering
To begin the year the teacher went through an interactive slideshow that went over the basics of what an engineer is, what they do, and the different types of them. After we also set up out Engineering Notebooks, where we can put all of our ideas, note, and sketches. We also practiced doing conceptual sketching and what makes a good conceptual sketch. Below is the slideshow we followed along with and a practice conceptual sketch of how the petal of a bicycle works.
Break it Apart!
This was a reverse engineering project in which we took apart an object from our home, and then analyzed and researched how it worked. After we formed groups and discussed our findings about how each of our own objects were similar and contrasted with each other's objects. In these same groups we tend create a presentation to present our findings to the class. The object I took apart was a desk fan and below is the group presentation along with my notes about the fan.
Effect Teaming and Project Management
In order to have effective teamwork we had to form groups of people with similar interests but different strengths. This allows us to come together to choose a project in which we all enjoy working on, and be able to effectively split of the work and responsibilities. The people I grouped with are Joseph Walkup, Ethan Cadaoas, and Maddie Cinelli, click on their names to view their individual web portfolios. In order to properly manage our time and responsibilities we also created a gantt chart. There we have the deadlines for each part of our project, and whether or not they have been finished.
Brainstorming Project Ideas & Research
Our team had to do a lot of brainstorming in order to finally decide on the subject we wanted to work on. It involved a lot of saying the things that came into mind and think of the random problems people had and how to solve them. This we put on a padlet in order to see everything each person was thinking of, which can be seen below. The first idea we attempted to pursue was finding a way to make hidden doors cheaper, which ended up being rejected. Then we went on to find a way to open a door with your feet instead of your hands, however there already ended up being too many in the market. That's when we decided to focus on a project that would end up being theoretical, a habitat on Mars.
Logo Design
Since this project is also involving some marketing we needed to make a brand for ourselves. This involves making a team name, logo, and template for all of our documents. Each member contributed their own ideas and together we created the formatting for all of our documentations.
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Team Name
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Logo
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Document Format
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The first thing we were trying to decide was the team name, at this point we were still in the process of switching project ideas and therefore could not think of a name that would relate to our project. That's when Ethan thought of using the initials of all our first names to form the name JEMS, for Joey, Ethan, Maddie, and Sarah.
Joey Walkup
Ethan Cadaoas
Maddie Cinelli
Sarah Ng
Joey Walkup
Ethan Cadaoas
Maddie Cinelli
Sarah Ng
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Next we were deciding on a logo design and each did our own small brainstorms. In terms of design we wanted it to be something simple and have the team name in it. Our first ideas mostly involved the name being in the center of a circle or some sort of gem since our name was JEMS. We ended up choosing a simple diamond shape with the name going across the middle. To choose the colors we decided all looked at different colors together and ended up choosing a blue with the hex code: #2d8cf0, and as a secondary color we went with the deepest black, #000000, because it would make it easier to keep everything consistent. However, due to the formatting of our documents the black text of the logo ended up being a bit hard to see and we changed it to a white, #ffffff. Although we use both logos depending on which on is easier to see.
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Since we already knew the main color of what our documents would be because of the logo we just needed to format it. During a discussion about the format we asked if anyone had any preferences, in which Joey said that the page should be an off-black with white text. At first I took this as a joke but did it anyways since it never hurts to try, and also made a similar format in which the page was white and the text was black. However after looking at both we found out that the off black page ended up looking better and ended up sticking with it. Then we finalized it by adding some another blue and a grey for sub headers, put our logo in the corner, and a line at the top for the beginning of each document.
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Define the Problem Initial Demand and Wishlist |
Customer/Market Research & Human-Centered Design Thinking |
Survey Your Customers
In order to broaden our thinking we made a survey to ask other people about which design they think is the best, what they would need in order to live on Mars, and other questions. Then we sent this survey to the school and at this time are still waiting for the results.
Reflection
Overall I believe that as a team and individuals we are completing work at a consistent quality even though we are a little behind. Whenever we work we all work efficiently, dividing the work by our own strengths and knowledge, especially when we work on the documents. We also make sure to check on each others work to ensure we have an understanding on everything that is happening, and making sure we do not make any mistakes. Even though we are a bit behind we are not stressing on completing the tasks on time but rather completing them with a consistent quality because we know that it is better to do it well a few times than having to redo a bad document a hundred times. We also know what we know what we need to get done and always plan what we will be working on the next time we meet to prepare anything individually beforehand. I really enjoy working in this group and look forward to continuing this project with all of them.