When the blog is updated with class news tomorrow, it be débuting a new look! After some html tweaking, the class will review a new, sleeker blog design in class. Things to check out on the new blog page will be student bios, a photo gallery, a blog search bar, and a front page photo slide show!
Monday, September 30, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
We have been divided into four different groups within this project: Build/Design, Software, Electronics, and Marketing. Many people in the class have some crossover as to what group they want to be in, so we will move people as resources dictate. Having these sub groups will help to keep everyone busy at all times; however, that shouldn't be too hard though given our task Each team is currently brainstorming and looking into ideas for them to consider during their initial planning and design phase. No one wants to jump into this pool of resin head first!
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Even after our decision making survey, we as a class are still not entirely sure where we stand for this year's projects. Today, we were presented with 3 options: to go with a full scale rapid prototyping interface and even market it out to companies, to go with the safer seatbelt and the crutch, or take these three projects and do them all but at a much smaller scale. We spent our time together today debating the pros and cons of each option. The largest point brought up was will a project be more or less effective with 20 people working on it? Regarding the issue of dissatisfaction, if 4 people do not want to work on this large group project, you have 20% of the group who may not be giving the project their all. We came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be the worst scenario and there are other options available for such cases (such as the already live elementary engineering project). Although the risk of having people not working is potentially higher with a larger group, one also receives the benefit of more people helping out and spreading around the work load. It then becomes a matter of efficiently dividing up the work into structured sections so all can stay organized and everyone can have a job. As an EDD class, our goal is to create something innovative and have a product to show for our work at the end of the year; if that goal is reached using the whole class focusing their efforts into one project, the benefit should outweigh the cost.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Today in class we finished presenting feasibility reports on the remaining projects. We saw that in every project, the most variation came in the estimated project prices. Prices have ranged realistically on the projects from about $1,000-$5,000. Also we have seen that certain projects entail a greater degree of risk than others. As a class, we have to take all these factors into account and consider if the project is fit for our EDD classroom. A vote got sent out to the class for each person to pick their top two projects and explain why they chose them and what skills they could possibly bring to the project. The votes are now in and are being tallied, results to come!
Thursday, September 19, 2013
With the beginning of a new year, it is time to welcome in a new set of innovative minds. The class of 2014 is one of the largest that EDD has seen to date with 22 students involved. For this year, Jay Murray took the position of Project Manager and will be making sure everything gets done in a timely and orderly fashion. For today's class, Jay had us present a feasibility report of someone else's project. From there, it is the class's job to submit their votes and pick the projects that we work on for the year. The top ten projects that we will now be selecting from include: a safer seatbelt, a GPS watch, a medical/athletic brace, an elementary engineering education program, a rapid prototyping interface, a more comfortable crutch, a fuel exhaust recovery system, a better voice recognition software, an automatic pill dispenser, and an electronic conservation system. All of these projects would be fun to pursue, but the question remains, which ones will the class choose?
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