These past few weeks have been for research, idea development, low fidelity prototyping and other things like that. This week was different because this one  has been about the final design.

We started this week with a pit stop. This was an evaluation exercise meant to assess the performance of teams and to checking whether we are making good progress or if all members of the team are participating fully and comfortably,etc. It was an awesome activity as it led to the unravel of many things which wouldn’t have been discovered if the pit hadn’t been done. For instance we discussed about team strengths and weaknesses, each team member contributed what he/she thought were some of the things which the team had been doing well and what the had to work on to ensure improved performance. In our team the most prominent weaknesses were poor responsibility delegation and communication( This was a broad spectrum of concerns one of which was that sometimes a few team members would start working on something without clarifying what it is they are doing to other members and in return the other idle members wouldn’t know whats going on or what to do). After  identifying some of the problems within our teams, we were instructed to come up with a plan that would solve the problems and our team in particular decided that at the end of each working day, the team would take 15 minutes and meet up to discuss what has been done that day and plan what is to be done the next day. This ensures that everyone knows exactly what will be required of him/her the next day. So far this has proven to be a very important way of managing the team and how it functions.

After the pit stop we then constructed a medium fidelity prototype which turned out to be “unintentionally” low fidelity prototype. The prototype was constructed so that we should test its portability, take a closer look at how parts fit together and how it will function. Unfortunately the choice of material we used to construct the prototype was not good as the prototype failed to achieve some of its intended purposes. We used PVC pipe( which are just round tubes while our design will be made from square tubes) which did not function as intended because we couldn’t make the prototype rigid enough.

We also went to Home depot, Micheals and Joann fabric to look at the materials we intend to use for building the device. This gave us a new perspective of the design because while there we saw a stand that had similar features to what we have so we adapted our design. Of particular interest is the adjustment pin they used which we adapted and made our own design similar to it but not entirely the same(see the first photo of the post)

The next day, we started making a well refined sketch of the entire design fitting in all relevant dimensions to fully define it. This sketch was then and still is being used to make a CAD model in solid works which will act a our guide when building the final prototype. we also made a material list of all the materials we are going to use and found dealers from which we can get them from. we quoted all prices so that we should have an approximate budget of the project.

After that, we then started making the CAD model(me and Alex) while Liz and Tori worked on making cushions. They(Tori and Liz) went to buy materials needed to make the cushions, made stencils to be used for cutting fabric and wood and they also started making some prototypes of the cushions.

Me and Alex have been working on the CAD model which is almost done. photos of the model

 

Tomorrow, Friday we are planning on ordering all materials necessary so that next week we should start building our final prototype.