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Description: Coming up with three conceptual designs for basic toys.                                               

Concept 1 Air Dragsters Concept 2 Madness with Marbles Concept 3 Army Flyer

That is very difficult to come up with original ideas for a simple toy. I also learned how to make web pages for the first time, and with the help of word how easy it was.   

Description: Design a freestanding structure that is able to contain the members of our group. We also had to build the design of another group.

Soluion: our design

That writing designs is a precise practice that involves careful planning and structure to follow. Directions for simple acts are very difficult to relay to other or accept from others. Working in a group is a good way to get many ideas, but it can cause an overflow that wastes time. Every group member should be listened to because he/she might know something for the good of the group that the other might not of heard.

Description: Help my buddy Role out before his big date

Solution: picture

It was a lot of fun to brainstorm and come up with a unique idea. Also, how to make a real working physical object in a short amount of time.

Description: To design and create a carry for six cans of pop that garfield can carry with only one hand and swing freely. It must also be made of on habermill cardboard

Solution: picture

That cardboard is a lot harder material to work with than I first imagined. My goal was to create a design that was simple and that minimized the amount of cardboard. I though mine was unique in the way that it used square form-fitting squares rather than the circles everyone else had used.

Description: Each group was given a part in order to create by some modeling process. Each group had to first study all of the various processes to see which one's could and couldn't work for that specific part. After every group had done this the class as a whole meet to deciede who will do which process along with each report. An indepth report/presentation about a specific modeling process followed. Now we are at a point where we are waiting for the redesign parts to be finished so that we can actually produce our parts. This took some time and eventually had been scrapped.

What I Learned: This was the first group project we had worked on. At first, there was some difficulty in the group dynamics with meeting and assigning work details. But as time went on we worked better and better together and completed everything needed with quality and teamwork. We were in the process of having our piece made when the project was cancelled. I wish we could have completed this, because I was interested in witnesseing the FDM process.

Description: Take simple everyday children's toys and think about what is the setup to make them work the way they did. Our toy was a simlpe helicopter/plane launcher. We offered a solution that included a spool and a retractable spring that the cord was wound around. In actuality it turned out to be a spool in which the cord was wound around, but instead of having a spring it had a thick gumband that ran down the handle. When the cord was pulled out it would twist the band and by releasing it it would naturally return to it's original position.

What I Learned: Things aren't always what they seem. We felt pretty stupid when we dissected the toy.

It turned out that I had very similar qualities to Walt Disney. I think this is a good way to get a general idea of what qualities a person has, but is not a tool to make distinctions between people. The group that showed the largest difference with in our class was the difference between the extraverts and intraverts.

Description: To design a carrier for a single raw egg to withstand a 3 story drop while being tested for accuracy and aestetics. All this was done in a system in which the materials were limited and had to be purchased on a limited budget.

What I Learned: I enjoyed this exercise a lot, because you had to take into account the design cost, the actual design, and the conditions of the fall. I was also amazed to see the impact an egg can withstand. The wind had slammed our dropped off the wall about 5 feet from the ground, in which it bounced off and landed 2 feet from the bullseye, all while staying in tact.

Description: We just attemped the newspaper with only one diiference only 5 sheets per member.

What I Learned: We worked in the same groups as before, and this time our group seemed to work much better together. As a group we tried to bwe more creative taking the aspects that were positive in ours and combined them with ones we saw in other designs. This was all for naught, because as it seemed to turn out the first designs were much more successful for almost every group. Another thing our group had learned was that having a written set of directions helps out a lot. The design we built was lost, and so we had to have the design explained to us in about 2 minutes. Thus to say, it was not a success.

This project excited me at first but quickly became very frustrating. Since two of the three members of our group were cheme's we had decided to make our exercise express cheme principles. The was okay in thought, but the general principles in cheme are not like those found in cee or meche, and in return were very difficult to introduce to kids. We had chosen separation processes. Overall this exercise was a set of deadends. With a group composed of two intraverts and one extravert, things didn't work out that well with the group dynamics. It just seemed very difficult to decide on what direction to go towards and set definite paths, because it seemed like all three of us were indecisive. Personally I know, I can throw ideas out all day, but if I don't get any feedback I'm not going to bust my butt on something if I don't know how my group members feel. Maybe it isn't always good to get intraverts and extraverts to work together, but instead get people that are similar to work together so they know what the others are trying to do and understand what eachother are trying to do.

This was the first time I had an opportunity to attend this and was excited to do so. I enjoyed seeing some of my fellow students research throughout the years. One suggestion for the future, maybe make project three different. I don't know what other time of feedback you'll get but I didn't feel all that comfortable standing by my child separation game, while my friend was presenting is ionic phase separation research. I enjoyed the class and am happy that I took a design class before I graduated, but I would have really had a better experience if the class had contained a somewhat more mature environment and content.