Explain how you used design thinking practices to arrive at this iteration of your toy/device.

I arrived at the final idea for my toy (ornithopter) by thoroughly considering about the different aspects of the design that will make it successful. First, I thought about the things that I must keep in the original design of the ornithopter, and things that I could make more creative. To ensure that a conversion of elastic potential energy to kinetic energy can be clearly shown from my product, I decided that I must not change the core mechanism that makes this possible: using rubber band to power the movements of the wings. However, I decided that I could change its appearance to make it look more unique, by painting and cutting its plain-colored wings and tail to have the features of a peacock. Then, I began considering about the requirements that will take for the product to function successfully and have little impact on the environment. This led me to shrinking the length of the peacock’s tail, so that this outer design would not be putting too much weight on the wings—minimizing its impact on the functioning of the toy. Apart from that, I carefully thought through the materials that will be used to construct the product, aiming to reduce environmental impacts and avoid over-weighting (so that the ornithopter could fly further and longer). With that in mind, I changed the iron wire used to fasten parts together to strings, which is lighter and more biodegradable. I substituted the plastic used for making the wings to paper and decided to use the 3mm thick plywood instead of the 5mm one, both for roughly the same reasons—environmentally friendly and lightweight.

Important Measurements of the Ornithopter:

Total wingspan: 30 cm

Total length: 20 cm

Materials list:

• Thin paper (length: at least 30cm)
• 3mm think plywood board cut into:

5 cm long wood stick x 2

10cm long wood stick x1

13 cm long wood stick x1

4cm long wood stick x2

• 9mm small plastic pipe x2 (or use paper to make them)
• Paper clip x5
• Thin strings
• Plastic straw x2
• 1 cm small plastic pipe (could use paper as alternative)
• Beads x2
• Cotton swab stick x2
• Rubber band x2

Tools:

• Superglue
• Hot glue gun (alternative for superglue)
• Wood driller
• Ruler
• Pliers
• Scissors

Building Techniques

• Drilling–this technique will be needed when making holes on the wood pieces, with drillers, to assemble small parts of the product together during construction.
• Gluing–this technique will be used throughout the entire construction process since most of the materials (plywood, plastic straw, paper, etc.) can be put together by applying hot glue/superglue on their surfaces.
• Binding–this technique is used for fastening paper clips and wood pieces together with strings. (It is hard to glue these materials together)
• Laser-cutting—we’ll design the shape of the wood pieces on Affinity Designer and then cut them out with the laser cutting machines, for later use. This technique is suitable for cutting the wood boards as it is both precise and efficient.

Develop a detailed plan for creating the preferred design, including success criteria.

1. Check needed materials and aim to complete the construction of wood frames of the prototype in 3^rd
2. Complete the construction of the rest of the prototype in 4^th
3. In lesson 5, finish up the decoration of the prototype and test it against the success criteria written below (record the timing and measurements of the trials). Politely ask one teacher and one other student to try out the prototype and give feedbacks for improvement. Make revisions to the prototype based on the feedbacks and own observations—producing the final product.

Success criteria

-The ornithopter should be able to fly for at least 7 seconds

-The ornithopter should be able to flap its wings successfully

-The quality of the ornithopter should be able to hold up to 10 trials without breaking down