Tuesday, March 26, 2013
As we have gotten into using the rubric, Computer2torials has had its share of challenges and new opportunities. Sifting through numerous YouTube videos with the rubric is tedious, and of the 12 videos we have investigated so far, only 2 have been approved. We did, however, find the opportunity to apply our expertise in video production to the other groups. As our whole class explores representing aspects of their projects through videos, the video tutorial rubric will be the criteria they follow. Not only will we be progressing with the new rubric approach on our own website, we’ll share this as a contribution to the class as a whole.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
In class, members of our team worked on our second prototype. As of right now, there are only a few more parts to tweak before it is finished. Other members of our team met to come up with an informational video on how to bend plastic. This video was recorded the next day and is now being edited. In the next few days, the How to Bend Plastic video will be completely edited and ready to be attached to our progress report. In addition to this, we should have our second prototype done and ready to be tested.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Today in class the PivoRest members put pieces together and figured out the connection points for the current design. We have decided to use an L-bracket to attach the armrest to the extension piece connected to the ball and socket. We have bought new screws with flat heads so we can use them on the armrest without irritating the patients arm. We are in the making of a new mold using one piece of thick wood rather than two pieces of wood nailed together to get the right thickness. We are also refining the distance of the extension piece and cutting it down to the correct distance. We hope to finish the current prototype this weekend and test the design next week!
Today in class, the First Wave group made progress in multiple areas. Tom worked on and completed the progress report due next week. After reading it over, the group is definitely getting work done and moving in a positive direction. Meanwhile, Connor and Eric worked on cutting out templates for our next bag. With Connor leaving on a two week vacation, a lot of the sewing will be on Eric. And finally, Seth and Alex worked on testing how strong the bag is by loading it up with some the heaviest stuff we could find and walked around with. So far the bag has held up to all the tests. Monday, March 18, 2013
Today we set up the user registration page with a captcha so that we will no longer be getting spam accounts that are not actually people. This will lower the maintenance of the website as we have just been deleting these fake accounts for a while now. With the completion of the video rubric, video picking has begun. Now all that we need to do is find the videos, create the steps, and then post them to our website. This should allow us to output more content quickly.
Happy Monday from Team PivoRest! Today in class, business went along as usual, with us continuing to work on our design. From the attached picture, you can see Dylan standing proudly with one of the hand pieces we made, which he sewed together all by himself. We are meeting after school today to run to the hardware store to pick up some more materials, since we plan on meeting with a prospective patient on Thursday who is willing to test out our design. So, needless to say, we have a lot of work to do this week! Along with this, we have progress reports due next week, so we need to understand what we said we would have done, and make sure everything is progressing like we expected it to.
Two of our team members, Brian and Seth, went to Presque Isle, Maine, for Eastern State High School Championships for Nordic skiing. This was the perfect opportunity to test our latest prototype design. They brought the new design and actually used it for a race day bag, putting their boots and equipment in it and testing the bag in the field. The bag held up to the use and abuse that is a ski trip. However we have found some flaws to fix, such as a stiffer back panel.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Nearing the end of the school year we are finally starting to see what we've been working on for a year come together. With our second prototypes on their way we are able to fine tune our product. After this batch of backpacks we will decide whether to create a new design or polish our current one. After we complete one more round of bags we will work out a series of tests.
With the creation of our video rubric, we are increasing the number of videos that we are putting on our website. We are checking the videos for their quality to make sure that they address the problem. They also need to fit the level of professionalism that we are trying to achieve on our website. We will also be creating steps for the video if they are not already made so that if someone does not want to watch the video or has a slow connection they are able to read how to fix their problem.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The website is continuing its progression as we move ahead steadily toward the testing phase. But the video count has remained idle as we prepare to apply our video rubric to locating the best among videos we did not produce. The rubric, although it is a vital component of our upcoming testing procedures, will not suffice as our only test. We have begun compiling a table of testing procedures, organizing them according to video and web tests, and specifying what exactly they test for. Finding adequate tests beyond the bounds of user feedback will be a challenge, but we will stay thoughtful on the topic as the testing stage of our product approaches. Our video rubric will also be refined as we put it into use and determine how to make it as precise as possible.
In the last couple of days, we've been working on improving the hand piece. Our new design will be lighter, stronger and more user-friendly. Instead of having the rest fixed, now it will be one bar, which slides along the bottom of the arm rest to accommodate for different arm lengths. Also, there will be different diameter tubes which slide on and are pinned on to the bar for different sized hands or different angles. We are currently working on sketching the idea on Inventor and will begin to implement it in the design while working in the next couple of days.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Team PivoRest is hard at work making our second prototype.
Today in class, we made a new mold to bend the plastic around once heated and
designed a way to distribute the weight of the armrest on the pivot point. This
will decrease the torque and put less pressure on this crucial piece. Moving
forward, we will continue to work on our prototype. We will be meeting over the
weekend to fabricate the piece to distribute weight.
store. After a while we were able to find someone who was willing to help us. We sent this man an email to further explain what our class is really about, and we hope to gain constructive feedback from him in the future.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Today in
class we continued to cut out the redesigned backpack. We decided that we need
multiple layers to increase the strength of the backpack. Also we will include
a water bottle pocket that was not put into our original prototypes. This
design was added due to the fact that most backpacks have one. Our first
prototypes are being put through many trials to find out what it takes until
the bag reaches its breaking point. Tests include amount of weight it can hold
and how the bag feels to the user when the weight is applied. These tests will
help improve the backpack and make it function better.
The PivoRest members have been working hard on completing
the second prototype as well as plan for the future and the final product. In class today, we were able to begin the
build of the mold to be used for the final armrest design. This mold will take the place of our original
framework that needed minor modifications.
We also were able to create a testing rubric for when we have patients
try out our armrest and to receive feedback on how effective it is. We will finish the testable second
prototype soon.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Today the First Wave pack met with local Nordic skier and Coach Dave Paarlberg-Kvam. Dave is not only the coach at a local high school but also organizes a citizen’s team in the area. All in all, Dave has been skiing for 16 years and has been roller skiing for 8. He is the perfect person to review our bag. When asked how he carries his equipment, Dave said he usually throws everything he can into multiple bags. He sees kids having more of a problem with this because they don’t know what kind of bag to get that will be able to hold all the equipment. According to Dave, Some features to look for in choosing a bag to use is it has to be big enough, and it has to hold skis, boots and a change of cloths for after. On a typical training session Dave uses at least three bags. After being introduced to our prototype Dave made the following suggestions: we should put something on the bottom to hold the skis down from wiggling all over the place. He thinks if you ever needed to travel with ski equipment, this would be the bag to use. He suggested we make sure the connections are tight. You don’t want everything to be flopping around. Tight and compact is the way to go. Dave is not only a skier but an artist, so we asked him how he thought the bag looked. His comments were “I like the pattern and material changes. You used some snazzy materials.” he said we should try to blend in the schools athletic mascot into the design. The Blue Streak is a symbol of motion and that’s what we are trying to get at with the bag. He then gave us some techniques to try to get that “Blue Streak” look into our bag. The team is thankful Dave was able to make it in to see our work in progress and give us feed back. It’s always good to have a fresh set of eyes look at our work and give us their thoughts.
Today's Skype meeting with Matt left us thinking. We now have a lot more things to consider, such as maybe just finding the best YouTube videos and using those videos instead of making our own. We also need to make the website much more user friendly. Matt gave us an idea of making the text bigger and he also found it hard to find the videos. These are things that we most certainly have to fix as our client base is not going to be as tech savvy as our skyper was today. He wanted the website to be very simple, of course that makes our job easier and will hopefully make our website more useful. He complained about never getting a response from an admin for the account he created, we never intended for anyone to make an account so we need to convey that message very clearly and will probably end up hiding the log in screen until people want to make a request. What he did say of the videos we created was good, he said the quality was nice and that they were to the point.
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