Skittle Dispenser Design

Overview

The Skittle dispenser project is a group based design project intended to enhance team working skills, design and problem solving skills, budgeting, and goal setting. This project build off of others in class, continuing with the engineering design process. Students are placed in groups of three to four using a random group generator. The premise is when you get a job, it is very rare that you get to choose who you work with. Emphasis is placed on the importance of being able to work with anyone, even though it may be challenging at times. Students are given the design challenge of creating a working model of a Skittle dispenser that would be used on store counters to dispense free samples of candy to customers. Materials must be bought and tools rented from the class store. Each group is given the same amount of money and has a maximum price limit to try and stay under. Students make their initial design, test it, evaluate it, then take the data gathered and redesign, rebuild, retest, and reevaluate. The specific objectives and grading can be seen below in the design brief.