June 4: Engineering Design Process

Engineering Process with KNEX

We worked with KNEX to create a new mode of transportation to solve an issue. We used the engineering design to produce our final product. 

Our group followed the following process:

1. Ask: We decided that the way supplies are delivered to students in university thought the robot or UBER is too slow and inefficient. 
2. Research: We looked into the design of the robot at UTK. 
3. Imagine: Ideas were brainstormed and we chose to create a robot that has a slinger to chuck the deliver to the room. 

4. Plan: We drew a plan out and discussed how to create/build our idea. The idea we had was that it would be a robot that could travel across campus to give supplies to students. It would stop at the building of the dorm and when the student was ready, it would launch the secure package to the window. We wanted the design to be simple- has four tires and is fairly small with a long pole sticking up from one side with a launcher set up. 

5. Create: We started to play around with the KNEX pieces to create a similar model to our plan. We connected pieces together and attached a rubber band to demonstrate the "slinger" part of our model.

6. Test: We tested our model by seeing if it could reach one side of the table by getting pushed from another side. Our model did pass the test and reached the other point of the table safely. 

                                                                7. Improve: Although we made no improvement to our physically model, we added the fact that the robot will send a confirmation text to the student and wait for them to confirm before launching the deliver. 

Pictures of Model:

Reflection:

I learned that following the engieering process is really beneficial to having the best possible product. For example, a lot of times, I skip straight to planning without fully brainstorming multiply ideas and doing through research. Today, we spent a lot of time discussing the issue and researching possible models which helped us come up with a really solid design. I also learned how to reflect efficiently on our results and come up with proper improvement ideas. 

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