Creative Engineering Design
In this assignment, our groups were supposed to come up with a product(it is only a prototype) that would help solve a world problem. Any appropriate world problem. It was technically called a creative engineering design but we thought of it throughout the process as a solution to a world problem. Some groups chose tsunami protection, earthquake protection, or even electricity savings. For our creative engineering design, Tony Molloy, Zach Roesler, Peter Hunt and I, decided to make a helmet for men and women in combat that is a better fit and has more protection. First, we looked up what kind of helmets are being used right now for our soldiers. Then, we found information about head injuries in combat such as: concussions, post traumatic stress disorder, and brain damage. We really found some interesting information and compelling stories. I certainly encourage you to look up some facts on the head injuries, I think you would be quite amazed. Anyway, we then got to work on our prototype. We first made a mold on Zach's head of a helmet to get the size of it. Then we used that mold and started to create our helmet. Tony brought in some materials that were very useful such as: ski goggles and fabric. We used those materials to create the base of the helmet. We then covered the base of the helmet with duct tape. We then put copper wire on top of the duct tape to strengthen the frame. We then put more duct tape on the helmet and we finished our helmet. Below is the engineering design cycle:The Creative Engineering Design Cycle is a series of steps used by engineers to guide them with their initial problems. It consists of a number of steps, generally including:
1.Brainstorming: finding ideas for designs, crazy or not
2.Designing: making a representation of a physical model
3.Analyzing: breaking down your work and fixing the problems
4.Building: building the physical model
5.Testing: testing the model against certain elements of nature and other life forms
Peaks/Pits
I think our two main peaks in this project were cooperation and communication. When we communicated, we were spot on with our statistics and our progress. Our cooperation also lead to these things. Our two pits were concentration and focus. When we were not focusing and concentrating on the project, we found ourselves procrastinating a lot. That is definetly an area that I can improve on in the future.
1.Brainstorming: finding ideas for designs, crazy or not
2.Designing: making a representation of a physical model
3.Analyzing: breaking down your work and fixing the problems
4.Building: building the physical model
5.Testing: testing the model against certain elements of nature and other life forms
Peaks/Pits
I think our two main peaks in this project were cooperation and communication. When we communicated, we were spot on with our statistics and our progress. Our cooperation also lead to these things. Our two pits were concentration and focus. When we were not focusing and concentrating on the project, we found ourselves procrastinating a lot. That is definetly an area that I can improve on in the future.