Creative Engineering Design
Project Description
For this project, we had to pick a problem that we were facing today, and come up with a possible solution. We then had to create a presentation on our chosen solution and present it to the class. For our problem, we choose to tackle the California drought. The first week and a half was all spent on research about our topic. We had to know what was causing the drought, what people are already doing, what we could do to solve it and so many other things. From then on out, we worked on the presentation nonstop. By the end of the project, we had our cause and our plan of action all clearly laid out in our presentation. For our solution, we chose to create a dry shampoo that would cut down on how many times people showered a week, saving up to 242 billion gallons of water per year, that is if everyone only showered once a week. This would help out our drought situation, but asking people to only shower once a week is a lot to ask. We decided had many other possible solutions, but all of them were shot down because they were either too costly or took to much time to use. We also decided to create seasonal scented shampoos that would both smell good and make people want the next scent to come out. Our presentation went reasonably well, but we had too much writing per slide, which made it hard to read. You can see the finished presentation below.
For this project, we had to pick a problem that we were facing today, and come up with a possible solution. We then had to create a presentation on our chosen solution and present it to the class. For our problem, we choose to tackle the California drought. The first week and a half was all spent on research about our topic. We had to know what was causing the drought, what people are already doing, what we could do to solve it and so many other things. From then on out, we worked on the presentation nonstop. By the end of the project, we had our cause and our plan of action all clearly laid out in our presentation. For our solution, we chose to create a dry shampoo that would cut down on how many times people showered a week, saving up to 242 billion gallons of water per year, that is if everyone only showered once a week. This would help out our drought situation, but asking people to only shower once a week is a lot to ask. We decided had many other possible solutions, but all of them were shot down because they were either too costly or took to much time to use. We also decided to create seasonal scented shampoos that would both smell good and make people want the next scent to come out. Our presentation went reasonably well, but we had too much writing per slide, which made it hard to read. You can see the finished presentation below.
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Terms and Definitions
Engineering Design Cycle: A process that is used to research and find a solution to problems. We used this to help guide us throughout the whole project.
Reflection
This project was definitely not one of my best for many reasons. The first of which is that I wasn't totally interested in the California drought. At first, it was interesting, but then as we got into the project, I realized it didn't interest me that much. Another problem was that our research wasn't all that in depth. We got plenty of surface facts, but none of the stuff as deep as we should have been. I realized this when we started to work on our presentation and had to go back and do more research on some specific things. One thing I did think we did well was that we communicated with each other about the project and what we had learned or thought we should do. This helped us tremendously in the long run, because we all knew what the others knew, making it easier to pick up where one person left off. Another thing we did well was that we were able to work together. This was the most cohesive group so far, and that helped us tremendously. I think that this project had been a great learning experience for me, and I know I will do better in the next project because of it.
Engineering Design Cycle: A process that is used to research and find a solution to problems. We used this to help guide us throughout the whole project.
Reflection
This project was definitely not one of my best for many reasons. The first of which is that I wasn't totally interested in the California drought. At first, it was interesting, but then as we got into the project, I realized it didn't interest me that much. Another problem was that our research wasn't all that in depth. We got plenty of surface facts, but none of the stuff as deep as we should have been. I realized this when we started to work on our presentation and had to go back and do more research on some specific things. One thing I did think we did well was that we communicated with each other about the project and what we had learned or thought we should do. This helped us tremendously in the long run, because we all knew what the others knew, making it easier to pick up where one person left off. Another thing we did well was that we were able to work together. This was the most cohesive group so far, and that helped us tremendously. I think that this project had been a great learning experience for me, and I know I will do better in the next project because of it.