DESIGN BRIEF Client Company: IC Inc. Target Consumer: National recreation and park association Problem Statement: The National Recreation Park Association (NRPA) has asked your team to develop a solution to a growing problem in their parks. The association has placed dumpsters for recyclable material throughout the parks. They have a sorting facility; however, they need the device that will sort the recyclable material.
Design Statement: Design, model, and test a device that will separate recyclable materials
Constraints: 1. Separation process must be fully automated. 2. Must successfully separate commingled recyclable materials into individual holding bins. 3. Recyclable materials include 3 different in. material spheres totaling 15. Examples could include steel, aluminum, wood, opaque plastic, and clear plastic. 4. Must be efficient 2 minute max for completion of sorting process.
BRAINSTORMING IDEAS
DECISION MATRIX
Decision Matrix Template Ideas size development time function resilience reusability Totals idea # 1 5 3 2 5 3 18 idea # 2 7 5 4 8 3 27 idea # 3 5 3.5 5 4 3 20.5 idea # 4 5 7 6 2 3 22 scale of 1-10 the lower the number the better
1. What was the most challenging aspect of this design problem? The most challenging part for us was getting the light sensor to read the different kinds of marbles no matter what we did I just didnt want to read them at all. This also caused our servo motor to go one way because it didnt know the difference between marbles. We a were also having problems with one of our servos then it decided to go out on us so we had to use a regular motor which was more difficult because we had to time it right so only one marble would come out at a time.
2. What are some creative changes that you would make to the design solution if you could start over? I would probably make it all mechanical with little programming or maybe even add some loops to make it look more interesting. These projects you really cant add to many things to make them look cooler. REFLECTIONS Unfortunately we did not completely fulfill the objective because we were only able to separate two different marbles and it required at least 3 the major setback we had was that we could not get the light sensor to work at all. We would probably take out the light sensor completely or get someone that got theres to work to help us with it. The results somewhat fulfilled the problem statement we did not get our project to do everything required or needed in the problem statement. I learned that not everything works sometimes no matter how many time you try. Some challenges of working in a team is that we have different ideas and we dont always agree with each other. Working in a team has more advantages then working by yourself because you can finish things faster like building a project or programming like they say two heads are better than one.
RECOMMENDATION PAGE For the teacher I would recommend that they learn a little more on programming because this year unfortunately they were not able to help many of us with our problems because they themselves didnt know too much about programming For the student I recommend that you pay major attention to the part where the packets teach you how to program because you use it a lot and its really hard to get your project working when you dont know how to program