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Day 2: Engineering Design Process

KNEX Project:

Team members:
  • Katie
  • Hailey
  • Anjani
Team Plan and the Engineering Design Process:

Our plan was separated into an 8 step process, otherwise known as the Engineering Design Process

Step 1: Define the problem
 
    Our goal today was creating a mode of transportation. We could choose what we were transporting and how it would be moved; In our case, we decided to move a penny Anjani had in her pencil bag.

Step 2: Research the problem 

    In this particular scenario we were constrained with a small bag of KNEX pieces. None of us had experience with these parts, so we began to familiarize ourselves with the mechanics of the pieces.

Step 3 + 4: Brainstorm

    We ultimately decided on a car rather quickly, but we were not completely sure of the ways we could create a car. Through fumbling with the pieces a little bit and researching pictures of KNEX cars other people had made online, we came up with a final plan which leads us to Step 5.

Step 5: Create

    We had Hailey draw out our plan while we decided on our essential features (a seat for our coin, and a base with four wheels). We now officially had a collective vision and idea of what we were creating.

Step 6: Test

    In our initial build, although we had a moving car, we found that the axes we used to connect our sets wheels were too short, so we were unsuccessful in implementing our "seat" for our coin. 

Step 7 + 8: Improve and Redesign

    We sat with our original build for a minute and reassessed our available KNEX pieces, in which we found a longer stick! We redrew a new sketch that included a wider 4 wheel base so our seat could effectively fit.

Pictured: First Design Sketch vs Updated Design Sketch



Step 8: Retest

    This is where we officially tested out our build with the class' TA. While we now had a working car AND a working seat, we unfortunately failed to recognize a coin seatbelt as an essential feature; During our trial, our coin flew off our build when going at a fast enough speed, so in the future we concluded that we would test our prototype in multiple conditions (different speeds, obstacles, etc). 
  
Pictured: Our TA-Tested Design





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