Creative Engineering Design
Anti Weed Week:
The steps we took to follow the Engineering design cycle:
Step #1 - Identifying the need: The problem we had to solve was any world problem that we could potentially make an impact on. Initially, our group wanted to research tangled earbuds but there was not enough information online about them. So instead our group decided that weed use among teens was going to be the problem we researched.
Step #2 - Research the problem: We researched this problem by having each person in our group(3 total) find 3 articles about teen drug use and annotate them. To find the most accurate information, we only used information from .gov and .edu sites to help support our claim that teen marijuana use is a problem.
Step #3 - Develop possible solution: We went through many possible solutions. One of them was to make a soundcloud song, while another was to make a 30 second infomercial. Ultimately, we decided on either a new law that we would propose to the government or an advanced marijuana education program that would be offered to middle school kids for a whole week.
Step #4 - Select Best Solution: We decided on an informative week about marijuana that would be funded by a proposition. With this proposition that we would be proposing to NUSD and Marin county, we would have it named Proposition W(the W does NOT stand for anything).
Step #5 - Construct a prototype: To make our prototype, we went on our chromebooks and made a new google slides presentation. We put in information that we had collected from our notes and annotations. We then changed the theme a lot of times until we could agree on a good looking theme.
Step #6 - Test and evaluate prototype: We acted out the presentation a couple times and noticed that it was too long so we trimmed down some of the slides with lots of text on them. Then we did this a couple more times and debated whether we should use the word weed or marijuana(we decided on weed).
Step #7 - Communicate the design: We communicated the design by talking with each other about how some parts of the project could be improved upon.
Step #8 - Redesign: For our project we did not have to redesign it that much. The one time we did, it was just changing the format of the slides.
Step #9 - Repeat: For practically every single step we had to repeat it at least once until we were happy with our results.
Step #2 - Research the problem: We researched this problem by having each person in our group(3 total) find 3 articles about teen drug use and annotate them. To find the most accurate information, we only used information from .gov and .edu sites to help support our claim that teen marijuana use is a problem.
Step #3 - Develop possible solution: We went through many possible solutions. One of them was to make a soundcloud song, while another was to make a 30 second infomercial. Ultimately, we decided on either a new law that we would propose to the government or an advanced marijuana education program that would be offered to middle school kids for a whole week.
Step #4 - Select Best Solution: We decided on an informative week about marijuana that would be funded by a proposition. With this proposition that we would be proposing to NUSD and Marin county, we would have it named Proposition W(the W does NOT stand for anything).
Step #5 - Construct a prototype: To make our prototype, we went on our chromebooks and made a new google slides presentation. We put in information that we had collected from our notes and annotations. We then changed the theme a lot of times until we could agree on a good looking theme.
Step #6 - Test and evaluate prototype: We acted out the presentation a couple times and noticed that it was too long so we trimmed down some of the slides with lots of text on them. Then we did this a couple more times and debated whether we should use the word weed or marijuana(we decided on weed).
Step #7 - Communicate the design: We communicated the design by talking with each other about how some parts of the project could be improved upon.
Step #8 - Redesign: For our project we did not have to redesign it that much. The one time we did, it was just changing the format of the slides.
Step #9 - Repeat: For practically every single step we had to repeat it at least once until we were happy with our results.
Reflection:
In retrospect, the making of this project was good. Not bad, not great, just good. This was a good project to reflect and see how good I am at making google slides presentations, annotating long articles that felt never-ending, and presenting weirdly named presentations in front of a class. One of the pits of our project was the time management. For the first couple days of annotating we weren't really trying and thankfully this ended up not hurting our project's progression that bad. Another pit was when one of our group members was absent for the final 4 work days. This made it so that we couldn't implement his research into our presentation. One thing I learned about myself is that when worst comes to worst, i'm not a very good typist. I also learned about myself is that I am good at making names for projects and propositions. All in all, this project was a good experience and I would not mind working with the people I worked with again.