Reflect on your prototype. What were some strengths? What needs refinement?

Our prototype overall came out pretty to what we expected from our plan and blueprints. Some strengths I thought were that the toy was able to show the obvious energy conversion (elastic potential energy to kinetic energy) and at least one of the wings was able to move successfully. Another strength was that our toy was actually really built from the wood material we used, it was stronger enough to hold and so I’m guessing if the two wings worked out correctly, it may fly into the air successfully as well. However, some parts that would need refinement was the propeller and the wings. The reason we thought of why only one side was moving successfully was because of the connection between the propeller and the wings, this might be because of the detailed steps we didn’t consider or because of the different materials we had compared to the original video.

Outline the feedback you received from peers. Share some changes you will make as a result of this feedback.

Some feedback we received were:

Strength:

“I like how your design looks like a peacock. I think it is really colorful and attracts young people.”

“I think the design is really creative.”

“The envision is great and the idea is pretty solid.”

“I like how you guys used duct tape to wrap around the pointy end of the stick.”

Improvement:

“One thing you guys could improve is the appearance. Even though the toy looks really good, but the combination of the glue and strings that were used to connect the bent wire with the wood piece created a big lump, and so it might make it look not really aesthetically pleasing.” -Adding on to this feedback, one way I thought of improving was to firstly change the materials (but also needed to carefully consider if changing the materials would make an impact or not). Then because the glue created a big lump, next time we could try using super glue or adding less hot glue to make it look a bit more pleasing.

“I wonder if you could bend the paper clip again and so that it will be in the opposite direction to the existing one, then hook up the wings, and see if it would move.” -Adding on to this feedback, I think this could probably work. Bending the paper clip again may stop blocking the connection between the propeller and the wings and so that it could rotate successfully.