Friday, April 29, 2011

"The Deep Dive"

1. “From the buildings in which we live and work, to the cars we drive, or the knives and forks with which we eat, everything we use was designed to create some sort of marriage between __Form__ and ___Function_____.”



2. The folks at IDEO state that they are not experts in any given area. But, they do claim to be experts on the _process of how you design stuff_, which they apply to the innovation of consumer products.



3. After the team of designers is brought together, told the problem, and informed they have five days to “pull it off,” what phase of the design process do they immediately engage in?


They started off by defining the problem


4. Give two examples of what the team members did during this phase.

a.They stated statistics on how shopping carts are stolen and hurt small children


b.The next thing they do is go to talk to users of the device or consumers


5. List five rules-of-thumb that IDEO employees follow when they share ideas during the brainstorming phase:

a.one conservation at a time


b.stay focused on the topic


c.Encourage wild ideas


d.defer judgement


e.build on the ideas of others





6. Why should wild (and sometimes crazy) ideas be entertained during the brainstorming phase?

You would never have any points to take off to build a really innovative idea


7. After the brainstorming phase was over, the team narrowed down the hundreds of ideas by __Voting__ for those ideas that were not only “cool” but also _Buildable_ in a short period of time. What phase of the design process is this called?

Select an Approach



8. IDEO believes that the ideas and efforts of a __group__ will always be more successful than the planning of a lone genius.



9. Once the ideas were narrowed down and divided into categories, the group was split into four smaller teams. What phase(s) of the design process was each of these groups responsible for?

Model or Prototype

10. The leaders at IDEO believe that __Good__ behavior and a __Fun_ environment are two important reasons why their employees are able to think quickly and creatively to produce innovative results.



11. Sometimes, people come up with great solutions that work by trying their ideas first, and asking for Permission later.



12. Design is often a process of going too far and having to take a few steps back. What phase of the design process would the critique of the four mock-ups come under?


Test and Evaluate




13. Upon critique of the four teams’ models, it was obvious that none of the teams had developed an optimum solution. However, the people at IDEO believe that it is important to _Fail___ often in order to __succeed__ sooner.



14. What percentage of the entire week’s time did it take to fabricate the final prototype?


40%


15. Instead of showering his design team with a tremendous amount of praise, what did the boss require his employees to do with their new design?

Go shopping with it



16. Of all the things that we are surrounded by every day, what has not been placed through the design process?

Balloons 

Conclusion

1. What did you find to be the most impressive part of the team’s effort?

That they were able to complete the whole project in 5 days


2. What advantages are there to having a design team with members that have non-engineering backgrounds?
They won't start right away about thinking of calculations and other complicated things, the non-engineers will think only of the final design








3. There was a point in the process where a self-appointed group of adults stepped up, stopped the ideas, and redirected the group to break up into teams. Why was this done?


This was done because there were different possible models and this way they are able to test all the ideas.





4. At the end of the video, Dave Kelly states, “Look around. The only things that are not designed are the things we find in nature.” Can you think of anything that would contradict this statement?


Evolution is sort of a type of design process because what works better lives on

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Assembly Quiz




Egg Drop Challenge - Iteration #1

Total number of achievements earned:14
4)
Build Achievements
Material Size:
(your egg is not included in the material size)
(air is ubiquitous and not included in material size. "Rare" commodities like helium are.)

-Your materials fit inside a printer paper box
-Your materials fit inside a shoe box





Material Weight:
(your egg is not included in material weight)
-Your materials weigh less than 500 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 300 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 200 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 150 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 100 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 50 grams.



Drop Achievements


Drop Accuracy: none


Egg Resilience:
-Your egg broke but the yolk remained intact.
-Your egg cracked but the yolk stayed inside and intact.
-Your egg cracked but was still together.
-Your egg didn't break in any way! (awarded three times)
-Your egg didn't break in any way! (awarded three times)
-Your egg didn't break in any way! (awarded three times)





5) What designs from your class did well? Based on the achievements you earned,how would you redesign your solution to score better? Be specific (sketches with labeling work well for this).

  • Stanley's Design really shined in my eye because of how creative it was and how well it work
  • A better way to design our solution would be to add more padding and get rid of the parachute to increase the accuracy


Glider Challenge: Deliverables




1) What's the challenge?
              The challenge presented by this activity is to design a glider which is able to stay in the air the longest (Hang Time) and is also able to travel the farthest.


2) Brainstorm solutions:
               For this activity we were not presented rules for the Brainstorming phase
               Our immediate solution for this activity was to make the wingspan large so that lots of air would be caught by the wings


3) Specify:
-Criteria
-Constraints (be specific about materials available)

               The criteria was that the plane had to be able to fly


               


















4) Develop Solutions:
-Sketch (with labels)
-Model in CAD



4 Quadrant Feedback Square




             

Reverse Engineering: Mechanicnal Product - Functional Analysis



1. What is the purpose or primary function of the object?

  • For most people I think the primary function of the object is to make calls and send text

2.Make an educated guess as to how this product operates. Use simple machines’ terminology to explain the object’s sequential operation.

  • For the texting sense of the machine I believe that as the buttons are pushed they push down on sensors that tells the software to put that letter
  • For the screen sliding I think that there is a ridge that the top part of the screen moves along and then when it gets to the end of the track there is a stopper
3. Identify the system inputs, intended product function, and outputs. Use power point to create a "black box" graphic like the toothbrush example discussed in class. Save the slide as a .jpg image and post it to answer this question.
                (powerpoint image)


5. What is it about this device’s function that you cannot identify, because the mechanical components are hidden from plain view?


          You cannot see the inner workings of the phone because they are blocked from view by the chassis of the  phone, also you can't see the stuff that makes the screen workl.