Explain how you used design thinking practices to arrive at this iteration of your toy/device:
We arrived at this iteration of our toy by first defining the target audience and our intended purpose or design problem which are elementary children and to educate and introduce them to energy conversions, clearly listing out the user’s needs. With this in mind, we started to research precedents online in which we discussed different factors and whether they would meet the user’s needs, such as making the game easy to operate in consideration of children’s limited ability to understand complicated operations. After limiting our options, we further analyzed the pros and cons of each prototype and settled with the combination of Plinko and a basketball shooter, specifically, taking out the design idea of the scoring system from Plinko and the catapult from the basketball shooter since it would be easy to operate, shows energy transfers clearly, and engaging to smaller children. With further analysis, we also chose to find precedents on different catapults to analyze with the target of easy operation and creates a clear trajectory to show the transfer of energy. We found different types of catapults such as catapults made with popsicle sticks or catapults made with a paper cup and balloon and created a thorough analysis of the pros and cons regarding the levels of satisfaction of needs. While discussing that, we made a prototype of the paper and balloon catapult to test how well it would satisfy our needs as we were hesitant about its efficiency in operation, the prototype proved to be a failure in creating a clear trajectory. We finally decided on a popsicle catapult.
Design Concept:
Materials:
- cardboard
- hot glue/wood glue
- popsicle sticks *6
- rubber bands *5
- a plastic bottle cap
- a ping pong ball
- plastic board
Techniques:
- Measuring and drawing the shape of each part on the cardboard
- Utilizing the knife
- Cutting straight lines on the cardboard
- Utilizing glue and attaching materials to each other
Success Criteria:
- No/little possible safety hazards causing physical harm to children
- Environmentally sustainable materials and uses.
- Easy to operate and understand the operation so that children would be able to operate and understand the operation
- Clearly shows energy conversions (potential to kinetic – the most common and basic energy conversion)
- Durable (can withstand ping pong ball shooting without it damaging the catapult of the Plinko board in any way)
- Can function (can successfully launch a ping-pong ball with a high trajectory by pressing down and releasing the bottle cap stick, as well as accurately landing on the Plinko board and falling down smoothly)
Plan & Specific measurements:
We will be making the catapult first to test how well it could function and to change the catapult plan accordingly before making the plinko game. We were planning on cutting every piece of the plinko game out before gluing them together and assembling.
