FINAL DESIGN
DEFINE A PROBLEM
SUMMARY
Our team decided to split up our responsibilities so we could all contribute to the project in our own way, from school or from home. We all know our roles to be in charge of and can help out our other teammates. We created a gantt chart and design brief so we could stay organized and on track throughout this project. We only had four days to complete this project so we had to stay focused and efficient.
Our team decided to split up our responsibilities so we could all contribute to the project in our own way, from school or from home. We all know our roles to be in charge of and can help out our other teammates. We created a gantt chart and design brief so we could stay organized and on track throughout this project. We only had four days to complete this project so we had to stay focused and efficient.
GENERATE CONCEPTS
SKETCHES
ALLIE
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IAN
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JAMES
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RESEARCH
PROS:
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PROS:
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PROS:
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TESTED MATERIALS AND TURBIDITY VALUES
MASK: we wanted to test the mask to see how well it would filter the water, however the mask was water- resistant and no water was filtered through it to test.
1 bad, 10 good
DEVELOP A SOLUTION
CONSTRUCT AND TEST PROTOTYPE
TURBIDITY VALUES AND TIMES
SUMMARY
During our first test, we found that the cotton balls absorbed too much water and therefore, made the filter take a very long time, 1 minute and 13 seconds, to clean the 100mL of water. We also decided to switch from charcoal to small rocks, because we felt that the charcoal dust contaminated the water even more, making the turbidity higher than we hoped for, 31.1 NTU. We wanted to make our design more effective and efficient so we went back to generating concepts to develop a solution with our new data.
During our first test, we found that the cotton balls absorbed too much water and therefore, made the filter take a very long time, 1 minute and 13 seconds, to clean the 100mL of water. We also decided to switch from charcoal to small rocks, because we felt that the charcoal dust contaminated the water even more, making the turbidity higher than we hoped for, 31.1 NTU. We wanted to make our design more effective and efficient so we went back to generating concepts to develop a solution with our new data.
EVALUATE SOLUTION
SUMMARY
Our second design was much more effective and efficient than the first, cutting the data in half for both the turbidity and the trial time, 15.7 NTU and 26.8 seconds. We decided to limited the number of cotton balls and instead use cotton rounds to still filter the water but use less materials that will absorb. We also layered the cotton round between each layer of rocks to create a "shelf" that only the water could run through not the debris. Overall, these changes heavily influenced our design and made our filter more successful.
Our second design was much more effective and efficient than the first, cutting the data in half for both the turbidity and the trial time, 15.7 NTU and 26.8 seconds. We decided to limited the number of cotton balls and instead use cotton rounds to still filter the water but use less materials that will absorb. We also layered the cotton round between each layer of rocks to create a "shelf" that only the water could run through not the debris. Overall, these changes heavily influenced our design and made our filter more successful.
REFLECTION
Our team was very successful with this project, we learned about how to filter water and we were able to refresh ourselves with the design process. In the beginning we followed the first step, defining the problem, we split up responsibilities, and created a gantt chart to stay organized and a design brief to outline our plan. We then started to generate concepts, we all created our own design, tested possible materials, and researched previous filters to help with our design. Our brainstorming, research, and testing helped us to develop a final design. We then constructed our prototype and tested our design to see if met the constraints and to see what we could improve. We discovered that our design needed to be faster and filter more water to be clean. Therefore, we had to evaluate our design, creating a new prototype and testing to see if there was improvement. Fortunately, our second design was much more successful and fell very close to the desired constraints! Throughout this project, or team worked well together we communicated and bounced ideas off of each other to come up with the best final design. I tried my best to keep us organized and on task so we could finish all of our work in the three day time constrain and thankfully we pulled it off! I have once again learned the importance of time management and know that this project was a great stepping stone before our capstone. I also learned about the different materials that make effective water filters, for example, in the beginning I though sand was going to be the best choice when I now know that cotton is one of the best, because although it absorbs the liquid it catches a large percent of the debris. Finally, if we could do this project again and had a little more time (maybe four full days for next year), I would try to perfect my final design to fall within the turbidity constrains by including more layers of cotton and rocks in the final design!