List of Problems
1. Manually taking out the trash and re-bagging the trash can:
"The dreaded chore: taking out the trash. If you’ve somehow gotten stuck with this stinky task, you’re probably unhappy. And we don’t blame you. Taking out the trash can be a smelly, messy, and downright gross chore – let’s face it, nobody likes doing it."(https://tiphero.com/trash-tricks) There is a brand new product that we found while researching this topic, the TOWNEW Self-Sealing, Self-Changing Trash Can. This company has developed a product that solves this problem, the dreaded chore of taking out the trash and re-bagging the can.
2. Hurting your wrist when gardening:
"Two of the most common injuries from gardening are repetitive strain injuries and tendonitis from activities such as weeding, soiling, digging, and planting. Tendonitis and strains can cause pain in your hands and wrists and can prevent you from doing activities you enjoy." (https://www.nebh.org/blog/protecting-your-hands-and-wrists-while-gardening/). Create a hand held machine that will turn and loosen tough dirt and, or dig holes to take away some of the force of gardening, there are no such solutions at this time.
3. Inside plants not being watered correctly:
"Improper watering is often the reason for sudden dying of plants. If you forgot to water for a few days, it’s possible that the roots dried up. However, the opposite is more likely, as too much water is often to blame for dying container plants." (https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/houseplants/hpgen/sudden-plant-death.htm). Create an automatic device that waters plants the exact amount needed, when needed. No similar solution have yet to be created.
4. People needing/forgetting medication:
"Maybe people forget to take their meds — about 60 percent of people say as much — so we just need to remind them. Maybe people don’t understand the value of what they’re prescribed, so we just need to educate them. Maybe drug regimens are too complex, so we just need to simplify dosing. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/upshot/people-dont-take-their-pills-only-one-thing-seems-to-help.html). Reminder packages have been created, as well as apps located on smart phones, but there is room for improvement and lowering the numbers.
"The dreaded chore: taking out the trash. If you’ve somehow gotten stuck with this stinky task, you’re probably unhappy. And we don’t blame you. Taking out the trash can be a smelly, messy, and downright gross chore – let’s face it, nobody likes doing it."(https://tiphero.com/trash-tricks) There is a brand new product that we found while researching this topic, the TOWNEW Self-Sealing, Self-Changing Trash Can. This company has developed a product that solves this problem, the dreaded chore of taking out the trash and re-bagging the can.
2. Hurting your wrist when gardening:
"Two of the most common injuries from gardening are repetitive strain injuries and tendonitis from activities such as weeding, soiling, digging, and planting. Tendonitis and strains can cause pain in your hands and wrists and can prevent you from doing activities you enjoy." (https://www.nebh.org/blog/protecting-your-hands-and-wrists-while-gardening/). Create a hand held machine that will turn and loosen tough dirt and, or dig holes to take away some of the force of gardening, there are no such solutions at this time.
3. Inside plants not being watered correctly:
"Improper watering is often the reason for sudden dying of plants. If you forgot to water for a few days, it’s possible that the roots dried up. However, the opposite is more likely, as too much water is often to blame for dying container plants." (https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/houseplants/hpgen/sudden-plant-death.htm). Create an automatic device that waters plants the exact amount needed, when needed. No similar solution have yet to be created.
4. People needing/forgetting medication:
"Maybe people forget to take their meds — about 60 percent of people say as much — so we just need to remind them. Maybe people don’t understand the value of what they’re prescribed, so we just need to educate them. Maybe drug regimens are too complex, so we just need to simplify dosing. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/upshot/people-dont-take-their-pills-only-one-thing-seems-to-help.html). Reminder packages have been created, as well as apps located on smart phones, but there is room for improvement and lowering the numbers.
Decision Matrix
Problem Justification
Market Survey
Problem Statement
Out of 258 people surveyed, 87.2% reported that they enjoy having real house plants inside. However 92% say that they forget to water them throughout the year, which eventually leads to the plant's death. This shows that there is a current problem, of people forgetting to water their plants properly and it needs to be solved.
Individual Summary
Over this past week, Lizzie and I have been so excited to get to work. We spent the first few days getting organized and creating our gantt chart. Then, we jumped right into brainstorming different problems that needed to be solved. We really took into consideration what our community interviewees said and looked into solutions for their problems. We weighed our options with our decision matrix and decided that we wanted to tackle the problem of "plants not getting enough water". So we created a survey full of questions and posted it on our social media to get as many responses as possible. We asked in the survey if this was a common problem among people and received numerous responses proving it is, and a big one in fact.