Overview of the design process:
When given this project to work on, we first think of the overall design process. On the first day of this project, we did our define and inquire stage. We identified our goal for this product, which was to design a device that can be used to teach energy transformation
and make a toy that converts energy. with this goal, we start searching on the internet for some precedents that met our goals of creation. After a broad search throughout the internet, the design ‘catapult’ stands outs to us, so our group decided to make a catapult. After confirming our final design product, we started to list out our success criteria for the final design, we also figured out the target audience and beneficiary of our product. Because they are a lot of catapult teams in our class, we decided to make our catapult special compared to others, which lead us to find out the idea of adding syringes, it not just changed the different energy that’s been transferred, but also made our creation process later much harder. Soon after we finish our define and inquiry stage, we stepped into our development and plan stage. In this stage, it’s very straightforward, we tried many ways to combine the syringe and the catapult to make it work, and also been stressing about the lengths of the base and the catapult itself. Finally, after we drew out the dimensions and layers of our design, we started our last “most deadly” phase – CREATING. In this phase, we first made a prototype to “make sure” our plan is working. Of course, there are some parts that failed, so we organized the failed parts, went back to the planning stage, and started to create better, improved land that will work better. This planning part was especially hard because the catapult couldn’t be stabled to the bottom part. After thinking and testing for over 1 class period, we finally figured out a way – adding rubber bands to connect them together, this way will not only stabilize the catapult but also makes the catapult launch further (still not that far really). Then we put all our refined designs together, and made our final product!!! 🙂
Success criteria
-Able to launch/fire a small ball
-Teaches students about energy transformation
-Clearly shows the mechanical, potential, and kinetic energy
-Students can have fun playing with the toy
-Safe to use and appropriate for classroom environments
-Uses a syringe lever
-The base and platform are stable
-Inclined slope on the triangular base at an accurate angle
-The platform stays connected after each launch
-Neat/uses different colored popsicle sticks
Strength: I believe our product has multiple strengths due to its meets to the success criteria. First, our product is able to launch a small ball (in this case, we are firing a die), this is due to the successful energy transfer in our catapult. When we push the syringe, the mechanical energy inside transfers to the other syringe that we attached to the catapult, resulting in it forming potential energy, soon when the catapult is launched, the dice contain kinetic energy since it’s been launched. What we changed to make it successful is we added the rubber bands, it did not only make the platform stay connected each launch, but also stabled the wood block to the launching part. we also used a lot of colored popsicle sticks to make it look nice to students since it will stand out more when it’s colorful than normal color.
Weakness: There are not a lot of small weaknesses in our product, since we have been fixing them throughout the creation phase. But the main problem/failure of our product is that it is not really a catapult. by using the syringes, it limits the distance of the ball/dice that’s been launched, making it not really act like a catapult, so it loses some fun of a real catapult design.
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Our design meets our design specifications because it fits well with the objectives and goals from the early stages. Our design was created to educate students to learn about energy transformations while having fun, but also being safe. The product meets the desired outcome because it showed energy transformation in a toy that was planned, and was very suitable to be used to teach energy transformation to students. When linking our product to the users and beneficiaries, teachers or parents can teach students about energy transformations using this simple toy, providing a fun and real example for students to learn from in their daily life. Overall, our design meets our design goals by linking it with our success criteria, desired outcome, user, goal, target audience, and beneficiary. (Also known as the “Big four” of the define and inquiry phase – Mr. Ower Fidler)
What are you most proud of?
The proudest part of this work is my work and creativity in the planning and creating phase. After we tried out the first plan, there were a bunch of mistakes and problems that need to be fixed, but the most important problem is that the launching part itself is not stable to the wooden block. When we try sticking the two pieces together, the catapult lost its ability to launch objects. While my teammate is fixing those small problems, I figured out a way that can stable the two pieces together, by adding rubber bands. By doing that, I first need to redesign my base wooden block to a perfect angle, which I found out was 70 degrees, then by adding a horizontal popsicle stick to the launching part, and attaching a small piece of wood to the base wooden block. Finally, by adding the rubberband through the popsicle stick and the small piece, it worked well! you can see the design in the pictures below.
