Portfolio

Radiant Roots

Phase 1: Define/Brainstorm

01.01 Problem Statement

According to the Institute for Emerging Issues, as of 2021, about 1.2 million citizens in North Carolina face the issue of food insecurity. Defined as the lack of nutritious and sufficient foods a person can easily access, the issue of food insecurity in North Carolina is mostly felt in rural areas which don't receive the attention or resources needed for healthy food choices. While the use of community gardens does reduce food insecurity, (as stated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)), many individuals simply lack the time to maintain these gardens. Unless something is done to make community gardens more self-reliant and less reliant on an individual, food insecurity will remain a pressing issue to the citizens of North Carolina.

01.02 Elevator Pitch

Did you know that in 2023, 1.2 million people in North Carolina experienced issues of food insecurity with close to half being those under 17? What we as Radiant Roots want to do is offer a solution through community gardens. Community gardens have had wonderful impacts on communities who use them such as in Michigan where those who've built community gardens eat "1.4 times more fruits and vegetables than non-gardeners". Maintaining a community garden can be time-consuming though which is why we want to make our garden self-sustaining through the use of renewable energy source solar panels. The solar panels will allow the community garden to be self-reliant with the use of a water irrigation system to water the plants, and cooling fans as well, meaning no time has to be wasted by the average person towards maintaining this garden.

01.03 Design Brief

Project Name: Radiant Roots

Clients Name: Low-income communities

Designers Name: Nolan Hunter, Alejandro Herrera, Angel Zapata-Dominguez, Julian Echevarria Galarza

Project overview and scope / Problem Statement

In 2023, about 1.2 million people in North Carolina experienced food insecurity, with 380,000 of those people being children under the age of 17. Food insecurity has also led to an increase in diabetes and obesity, with around 50,000 new cases of type 2 diabetes yearly in North Carolina. The availability of healthy food in North Carolina can’t be fixed with an increase in grocery stores as their high costs drive out rural communities, which are the most impacted by food insecurity. With a continuous rise in population in North Carolina, the drastic impact of food insecurity is more prevalent than ever.

Project goals and objectives / Design Statement

Did you know that a study done in 2021 found that in Michigan certain areas have built community gardens allowing the gardeners to eat “1.4 times more fruit and vegetables than non-gardeners”. The CDC has also found community gardens allowed for “food insecurity to be reduced in certain populations”. Community gardens are very beneficial, but everybody doesn't have the time to work on a garden, which is why we as Radiant Roots intend to build a self-sustaining garden through solar energy. With North Carolina being 4th in terms of leading states for power outages, electrical power was off the table, and generators potentially release toxic gasses, but solar power gains energy from the sun which the plants also already consume. Solar Energy will allow gardens to be self-sustaining through a clean energy source allowing the community to let the garden grow without too much work having to be put behind it.

Target audience:

Low-income communities
Lack of renewable energy
Lack of space
Food availability
Biodiversity
Weather availability

Milestones and schedule

Milestone 1 [Phase 01: Define / Brainstorm]

Goal: Finish all of the assignments, get a good idea of our team identity and fully plan out our team product.

Timeline / Deadline: September 18th, 2024- 11:59 PM September 30th, 2024

Deliverable: All of the assignments.

Milestone 2 [Phase 02: Research / Develop]

Goal: Prepare a plan and blueprints for the product and include the specific design we want for the project.

Timeline / Deadline: October 16th, 2024-

Deliverable: Blueprints for the product and design. Designs will be present to show.

Milestone 3 [Phase 03: Build / Test]

Goal: Fully build the prototype and be ready for trial testing of the prototype

Timeline / Deadline: N/A

Deliverable: Completed prototype with trial testing done with data present showcasing results.

Budget

Our budget intends to be 800 dollars since our items cost $597.23. Most of the expenses would come from the solar panels themselves especially.

Deliverables

We will have a prototype Solar Renewable Garden. The portfolio will be presented and so will the documentary. We will also bring data to our presentation to showcase the process of our project.

Stakeholders and review process

Our mentor and potential businesses related to renewable solar energy will help us with our prototype. We expect them to give feedback about the efficiency of our garden and ways we can improve the capabilities of the garden. We expect the judges to have comments about the areas where the garden can be utilized.

01.04 Research Book 1

Automatically completed

01.05 Polling/ Market research

Link to Poll

Poll Research Summary:

For this survey, our team members talked to people in the library and their everyday lives to ask them questions. We wanted to learn about what the general public thinks and believes. We polled in this manner to understand what purposes our garden could be used for by people not necessarily part of our target audience. We asked the audience some general questions that will be explained later in this document for our research the most crucial questions were the last two on our poll, which asked the audience to recommend additions to the garden and asked for overall product feedback. For the question that asked for user input, an outstanding number of people suggested we should add not only food cultivation but also general flora cultivation. This widespread consensus of adding flora also came with multiple suggestions of adding insects to create a small microbiome within the garden, which would help it cultivate more efficiently. The final question asked the respondents to give us criticism while most skipped the question a handful suggested explaining our product more clearly for future polls, which will be implemented for future polling.

Polling result with Explanation:

Question 1 “Could a Self-Sustaining Garden be effective?”

This question asked if people believed a garden could be entirely self-sufficient. We asked this question as people are typically used to imagining gardening as a laboring process that includes a lot of human involvement. However, they forgo thinking about the very nature that surrounds them that was cultivated due to pure instinct. Of the 88 people polled, 72.7% believed that a self-sufficient garden could work if constructed properly, while 27.3% believed that a self-sufficient garden could not function properly, with one respondee stating that " I wouldn’t trust things I don’t know of".

Question 2 “Would you be interested in gardens for the community? This would be gardens that are open to the public and are maintained by volunteers.”

This question gauged the interest of the general public's willingness to participate in a community garden. While simple in premise, this question is crucial to the success of our product, as, without community involvement in taking care of the garden, it will not be able to succeed in its purpose. While the heart of this product is to cut the labor-intensive aspect of gardening, community upkeep of the garden and continuous cycling of food grown in the garden are aspects that have to be handled by the community. Outstandingly, 86.4% of respondents agreed to upkeep and take care of the garden. This reassures that there will be at least some community members who can cover for the 13.6% of respondents who didn't commit to taking care of the garden.

Question 3 “Does a garden powered through the use of Solar Panels sound effective to you?”

This question gauged the interest of the general public's willingness to work with solar energy. Solar energy is a hot topic nationwide as homeowners search for alternative energy sources to cut their monthly expenses. Our garden takes advantage of these interests and combines them with the struggle for food security to attract people to our product. The solar aspect was also included as an educational opportunity so that future generations can become used to solar energy and its maintenance to influence a greener future. These hopes were further strengthened by 86.4% of participants willing to learn and believe in the effectiveness of solar energy for powering the garden. Just like the previous question, the majority will have to cover the workload of the 13.5% who don't believe in solar energy.

Question 4 “When you think of a self-sustaining garden, what type of features do you as a consumer believe should be added? This could include specific technology or aesthetic features?”

For this question, We asked the respondents directly if they had any suggestions or anything they wanted to see included in our product. While our product's intentions currently are to help aid communities going through food insecurity, the ultimate goal for our product is to be implemented everywhere for any purpose, whether it's personal recreational gardening or for businesses like restaurants to have fresh produce that is homegrown. For this versatility, we had to ensure that audiences were interested in our product, how they would treat the product, and if there was anything that we had to add. To our group's surprise, many people suggested having bugs and small animals, which would cultivate a small ecosystem within the garden. Many people also suggested having methods of water collection that were self-recycling, which is now something we plan to add to our build.

Question 5 “Any other thoughts/ideas on this project?”

This question asked for the audience's general final thoughts on the project and didn't require an in-depth response. As expected, most people seemed happy with the product and were excited to see what would come from its development. A few respondents recommended having some temperature controls and similar additions that would help the garden conform to its location. This additional feedback was extremely helpful, as locational differences weren't something my team considered. Now, our team plans to develop and plant out several iterations that correspond to different types of environments to find the one best suited for each community. A few respondents also expressed confusion as to the overall goal and function of the product, which prompted our group to alter the current poll and our way of approaching polling questions for future subsequent polls.

Summary of interview conducted:

Due to the anonymous nature of our poll, we didn't get to interview many people. However, the one crucial interview we got was from a respondee who lives in a rural region of Charlotte. They expressed extreme interest in the community garden as it is something they've tried to implement into their community but never succeeded due to a lack of resources and participation from the community. I explained how our garden would work and how its self-sufficient aspects would cover most of the work. They seemed extremely intrigued and asked how much community involvement would be necessary. Here, I explained that the most the community would have to do is check in on a semi-regular basis to ensure there is no cosmetic damage or obstruction of the solar panels and that the gardens would handle everything else. They explained this would be extremely beneficial to their community and assured that they would help spread the word to gauge interest and collect further poll responses. From this interaction, not only did we gain a new demographic of people to interview, but we also got an in-depth look at some of the struggles that our garden will encounter, which will let us plan for them ahead of time.

01.06 Brainstorming Sketches

V1 Concept

Design Explanation: For this iteration of the greenhouse, we designed it to be around six feet long and two feet wide with a depth of around a foot. The size is intended to be modular, allowing for a full garden to be made from a single one of our greenhouses. Our irrigation for this iteration relies on thin tubing in the middle of the soil. The tubing then extracts water from the basin under the garden and feeds it through the tubes and the soil. This mechanism is powered by the batteries charged by the multiple solar panels on the side. Each solar panel has its servo that rotates to follow the sun to maximize the energy gained.

V1 Final

Design Concept: This design features improved storage and overall space optimization for the garden, featuring a new water storage system and a new irrigation system. The new irrigation system is focused on the corners of the garden base and features sprinklers that cover the entire soil area. The water will also be self-recycling due to a porous membrane which will allow excess water to drop back into the container. The number of solar panels was also reduced and will be increased in size. The tent will also be reinforced with PVC pipes, which will also feature rain irrigation. The rain irrigation will be fed similarly to the previous irrigation system, but will instead release a mist that will be trapped by the plastic sheet covering the garden. This will make the environment more favorable for growth.

V2 Concept

Design Explanation: For our second design, we significantly cut the table size from six feet to five feet and increased the width from two to three feet. This design was created to focus on transportation and modularity. This design is based on the inclusion of omnidirectional wheels, allowing for easy transportation and alteration. This is also aided by the inclusion of the garden being removable from the station, which allows for easier care and transportation. This removability is thanks to the magnets in each corner holding the basket in place. The outer frame of the garden will also be the known home of the irrigation system, which will have wires running through the frame that feed water from the container into sprinklers in each corner, in a similar vein to Design 1.

V2 Final

Design Explanation: This final iteration of the secondary design is the same as the rough concept. However, there were some alterations in the way that the basket was attached to the outer frame, as well as alterations in the layout of the frame. Instead of magnets holding the basket to the frame, the idea of having clamps or a release system powered by a button was thrown around. Currently, the system relies on both clamps and magnets having a double security system in place to avoid any possible complications. The frame layout has also changed to include an internal power center for the components, such as the exhaust fan and the irrigation system, which will now rely on the solar panels directly. The irrigation system was also altered to include a similar mist system from the First design and extra sprinklers in the center of the soil to cover a missing area.

01.07 Competitor Products

Plant Growing Apparatus and Method

”The present disclosure is a plant growing apparatus that has an enclosure having an interior to maintain an interior environment and containing at least one light source, a planting column formed of a plurality of sections removably coupled to one another to define a cavity, and a conduit having a dispensing apparatus at least partially positioned within the cavity and positioned to distribute aqueous solution throughout the cavity. The planting column is rotatably movable about the dispensing apparatus and the at least one light source, planting column, and conduit are self-contained with the enclosure as part of the plant growing apparatus.”

The Plant Growing Apparatus is a machine made for growing plants. This machine encloses the plants to allow the plants to have an indoor environment. In the interior, the plants have an environment different from the outside in order to thrive. The interior also features a light source. The machine on the inside is rotatable, meaning it rotates allowing the plants to either go through a light source or a planting column.

This machine is comparable in a way to ours, but the biggest difference is that what we want to make is more of a community garden in order to help the community. The plant-growing apparatus comes with the stipulation that it's not really for the community. It's not a big enough machine to support a community, and still, there is a fair amount of human input that needs to go on with the machine which we would like to minimize with our invention. With our creation we want it to be self-reliant, we want as little human input as possible.

Solar Powered Fan

“ A solar powered personal fan with a much broader spectrum of both portable and fixed operating applications whereas prior art is application specific. This device also provides a plurality of fixed and portable power supplies. A solar panel, rechargeable battery pack or home charger can all be used as a power supply to operate the present invention”.

The Solar Powered Fan is a patent that describes a fan that is powered by solar panels. The fan is portable. The device comes with multiple fixed and portable power supplies as well. This specific fan can also be powered through a rechargeable battery back along with the solar panel.

Compared to our product, we need something like this. Our garden will need a cooling system/fan to cool the area. This patent shows an example of solar panels being used to power a fan which is something we want to do without solar panels. The difference comes with the fact this can is more so made to be portable while ours is made to remain in the garden, not meant to be a portable one. Our fan also is meant to be solely solar-powered. We don't want to use the electric power which this fan uses as that defeats the point of what we want to do.

Solar Water Pump Kit

Product Analysis: The “Solar Water Pump Kit” is made by Solariver. The price point of the product is $394.99. This product is sold through a variety of websites online such as Amazon, My Natural Pond, and even through their online store. The product is found in physical stores as well such as Walmart. As far as most reviewers agreed, this product was of high quality with not many people finding faults within the product. The product's special feature includes the fact it's solar-powered. This item does not rely on electrical power like a standard water pump does, instead opting to be powered through solar panels which the kit comes with. To promote its product, Solariver uses its website and advertisements to share what its products are for the user.

Solariver: Solariver is the company that made this product. Solariver is located at 4440 PGA Blvd. Suite 600Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410. Their website can be found through this link. Solariver in terms of market share for the “Pond Aerators Market” while no exact number is given, is considered to be one of the biggest companies in this market as shared through LinkedIn.

Strengths:

Many find the kit to be easily assembled as seen through the reviews.
The product lasts for 20,000 hours making it a very long-lasting product.
The kit overall is very simple, it's not complicated and doesn't come with any unnecessary items.
The pump was made to withstand environmental problems, such as heat, or if it gets wet, meaning it won't get easily damaged and broken.
For everything the kit comes with, the product is reasonably priced.

Weaknesses:

The water has to come from somewhere, the product doesn't come with an easy way for rainwater to be collected to be used to pump water.
While the product does last a very long time, it's not a life-long-lasting product as it advertises itself as being. There isn't a clear thing the consumer can do once the pump stops working except buy a whole new kit.
Other products such as filters or a bag for the pump are sold separately and not included with the kit. Things that should be included in the kit as they benefit the consumer having such items.

Comparisons:

Overall this product is very nice. The reason we wanted to discuss this product is that although our invention isn't a water pump, we do need a water irrigation system of some type for the plants in the garden. Our water irrigation system of course is going to be powered through the use of solar panels. This is what this product does here, it's a water pump moving water around through the use of solar panels which is something we want to do for our garden. This is why we found this product worthy of being discussed and comparable to our product. Overall the weaknesses of this product are important for us to take into account to make our solar-powered irrigation system as strong as it can be. For starters, the main thing is we want our system to be able to fully collect water through the rain. We want a rain collecting system in order to make the garden self-sustaining. If we get water from the hoes of a person, for example, it's not self-sustaining. We can allow that to be an option for people to do, but we'd like the main self-reliant part of the product to be the fact it gets its water through the use of rainwater and an irrigation system powered by solar panels.

Standard Grow Tent Kit

Product Analysis: The “Standard Grow Tent Kit” made by VIVOSUN is a kit that as described is made to be easily assembled and used for first-time growers. The product's main purpose is to allow plant growth to happen in this contained tent. The standard price of this product is $399.99. This product is sold online through websites such as the VIVOSUN website and Sthrough Amazon. This product can also be found in physical stores such as Walmart. As far as most reviews go for this product, many consumers enjoy this product with there not being many examples of those who have much to negatively say. The special feature included in this product is the “Grow Light”. The grow light is the light found inside the tent which is strong enough to allow for plant growth to happen without the need of the sun. VIVOSUN uses its website to promote and sell there product. They also use Google Adsense for advertisement as well.

VIVOSUN: VIVOSUN is the company responsible for this product. Their headquarters can be found 1320 S Baker Ave Suite B, Ontario CA 91761, USA. The phone number of VIVOSUN is +1 888-505-8486 and there website is found through this link. VIVOSUN in terms of market share is fairly large. The company makes an estimated revenue of around $2-5 Million annually.

Strengths:

The tent of the product allows plant growth to happen in one easy-to-managed small area.
The light of the product means it's not necessary to have to plant the plants outside or have to take the tent outside for a couple of hours. The light is powerful enough to allow the plants to get energy through that way.
Many customers have found the nature of assembly for the product to be rather easy.
Weaknesses
With how big the tent is, this doesn't allow for big plants or many plants to be grown in this small area.
The light source needs to get its energy from something, it doesn't use a clean energy source (which of course we want clean energy for our project).
No water source at all, meaning you have to physically water your plants yourself.

Comparisons:

Overall this product is a very neat one. It's great for those new to planting and need a simple way to learn how to grow plants. The reason we as a group wanted to examine this product was because of what it is. It's a product that's made to help grow plants in an almost self-sustaining way. With what the product comes with, for the most part, the plants would be able to grow on their own which is something we want but on a more larger scale with a reasonably sized garden instead of just a couple of plants. Overall with our team's product what we want to do is stop the need for any human interaction to have to happen other than assembly. This product, it's weakness from being self-sustaining is the lack of a water irrigation system. This means you'll have to consistently interact with the tent always making sure the plants get the water they're supposed to get.

Hydroponics Growing System

Product Analysis: The “Hydroponics Growing System” is made by “Growell”. This product is made for plant growth in a modern way with the use of technology. The product contains a touch panel that fully customizes how the plants grow. The product comes with lights that mimic the sun's rays (like the previous product of discussion). The product comes with a water tank as well to let the plants receive water. This product is best to grow food as well such as vegetables and fruits. The cost of the product on average is $139.99. This product is sold strictly on Amazon. Most reviews for the product are very positive. Most consumers agree that this is a great product for first-time growers and is priced well compared to most other comparable products. The special feature of this product is the touchpad which allows the customer to fully customize how they want their plant to grow.

Growell: Growell is the company responsible for this product. Other than a presence on Amazon, there is no website of their own nor a way to contact them other than on amazon.

Strength:

This product compared to all the others, with its touchpad, does allow for more variety with how it allows the plants to be grown.
The lights mimic the sunlight for the plants, meaning this product doesn't have to be taken outside in order for the plants to get sunlight.
The water tank at the bottom allows for the plants to get the water they sufficiently need in order to thrive.
Weaknesses
The water tank has to be manually refilled, not making this product fully self-sustaining.
To get its energy the product uses electrical power, making it not use a clean energy source which is what we want out of a product to consider it a “Strength”.
The product is a little too small for what we want to do, which as a reminder is to make a community garden. This product at its size, is best for a handful of plants.

Comparisons:

Overall this product is a very great product. It's able to be self-sustaining through a fair amount of things such as the use of its lights for sunlight and the water tank on the bottom to allow the plants to get the water they need, but it's not perfect for what we want to do. The water tank thing is the big issue. While our product is going to be made for being outside and not inside like this one, with ours being outside it has the advantage of being able to collect rainwater. This specific product needs a human to fill up the water tank, our idea is to not have human input and let the rain do that work.

Mobile Hydroponics Workstation

Product Analysis: The “Mobile Hydroponics Workstation” created by Diversified Woodcrafts is supposed to be for the most part a self-sustaining workstation able to grow plants. The main focus of this invention is to be used to teach a classroom about the growth of plants. The product contains a tray for the plants, a light source for the plants, a water pump, a timer, and of course the workstation to move the plants around with the wheels. The cost of the product is $1,919.99 and is sold directly online through School Outfitters. This product is advertised through this website. This product doesn't have many reviews from people so it's hard to gauge if people liked this product or not.

Diversified Woodcrafts: Diversified Woodcrafts is a company that mainly specializes in making products for schools such as desks, cabinets, tables, etc. When it comes to market share, they share a large amount in the “Laboratory Furitanture” market. Their address is 300 Krueger St, Suring, WI 54174 and they can be reached at 877-348-9663. Their website is found through this link.

Strength:

The light provided by the product allows it to gain its energy that way without the need for the sun.
The water pump included helps the plants get the water they need in order to be able to thrive.
Adjustable timers help remind the costume when it's time to take action and help their plants.

Weaknesses

The price, especially for what it contains, is not worth it especially when seeing other items.
The product isn't as high quality or has as many features as past items had.
The light for growing isn't as strong as past lights have been for the other past products.

Comparisons:

This product is very weak compared to past ones and what we want to make, which makes sense. This product has the purpose of teaching a class rather than being a fully dedicated machine to grow plants. Overall this product doesn't contain much to help the plants grow really only having the light source. For our product our light source would be the sun itself since we rely on solar panels we need our garden to actually be outside in order to get solar energy effectively. This product's just too simplistic for what we want to do, while we both have the goal of growing plants, our group wants to do it in a way that's self sustaining and to grow more than just a couple of small plants. This product, with its main purpose just to teach, isn't the best product out there for growing, but it does its main purpose well enough.

01.08 Criteria and Constraints

Criteria:

Build a prototype greenhouse (5x3 feet. 4 feet off the ground) with 2 solar panels, irrigation system, fan, batteries.
Make a self-sustaining garden that's able to store electricity in batteries for at least half a year, 6 months.
Having a self-irrigation that uses recycled water. Little to no human input as rainwater would be used.
Having fully functional 5 feet long, 1-2 feet wide solar panels
Generate electricity through solar panels
Build a prototype greenhouse with solar panels, irrigation system, fan, batteries.
One exhaust fan for the greenhouse to cool the plants/vegetables/fruits.
Certain quality of lumber wood of different lengths and measurements (as of now not fully determined yet).

Constraints:

2 months to build the prototype
Expensive materials mainly coming from the solar panels. Overall a cost of $800-$2,000
Inexperienced for usage of solar panels, greenhouses, and irrigation.
Our product needs to be fully self-reliant, no human input needed to water or cool the plants.

01.09 Design Specifications

Design Specification:

Have a greenhouse that is small but big enough to hold the plants as well as the batteries. Right now 5 by 3 feet is what we want to create for the greenhouse that covers the garden. We want to finish this in 2 months.
Irrigation systems that are powered by solar panels and irrigation systems should turn on without human input and they must be able to recycle the water to stop the need for new water such as rainwater.
Have an exhaust fan that is large enough to create the vacuum effect for the greenhouse while still being renewable with energy and low cost.
The garden beds should be raised to three to four feet above the ground where there should be space under the table for the two solar batteries to fit in solar panels that are easily moveable.
Our goal budget is around $800-$2000 and we plan to get this before the end of phase 2 or the start of phase 3.
Our budget should be around $2000 for the materials that we need relating to wood, our greenhouse, garden, batteries, solar panels, and exhaust fans.
We should have a functional water irrigation system and exhaust system that is cohesive that is small but complex and easy to build for anyone.
Make sure the greenhouse is locked in place so it is sturdy and stable in case of weather occurrences or tough weather conditions.
Batteries should be locked away from kids but they need to be in an open space so the garden can stay energized but far away so fires don’t occur.
The materials should be cheap and cost-efficient while still safe and sturdy enough for our product.

01.10 Building a Website

2-3 Paragraph summary of what we liked about a previous EXPO’s project.

For our expo website, we hope to emulate the look and similar success of the "Aerosponder" team website. The Aerosponder website has a unique color palette that is easy on the user's eyes while providing enough contrast to keep the viewer engaged. The smooth movement of the website and its elements allows for an interesting appeal to the sense of touch, making each page tab and subsequent buttons throughout the website feel tactile. The implementation of graphics such as photos and videos also provides additional methods to convey information, which makes the website more accessible to general audiences who may not know much about what a project for this expo entails. Overall, the Areosponder website is a good example of how a team website should look.

Our team hopes to emulate several aspects of the website, but especially the website's accessibility, visual appeal, and conciseness. We will emulate the accessibility of our website by having each page have a similar tactile feel and specific purpose. Our team will emulate the visual appeal by having a unique color palette that can be associated with our product and will be highlighted throughout the website. Our team will emulate the conciseness by having the information presented in an organized and collected manner on each website page. By achieving all of these requirements, our team hopes to create a sufficient website that can properly display our ideas.

01.11 Phase 1 Summary

01.A1 Evaluation through Reflection

1.Why is it important to do a group contract at the beginning of a project instead of waiting until a conflict arises?

It's important to have a group contract at the start of the project since this allows our group to understand our procedures without question. Having a group contract already allows us to fully figure out how we want to handle things as a group, in this way, conflicts will be less likely to arise since with this document we already know how to work through our project.

2. Are group contracts important if you are working within a friend group?

Even if your group is a group of friends it’s still very important to have a group contract. A group contract is useful for any type of group, no matter if it's a group of friends or people who don't know each other. A group contract as discussed in the previous question just helps get the group all together and on the same page, it allows a group to fully figure out how to handle things from conflicts to just doing assignments.

3. Why should a group contract be revisited throughout the course?

The group contract should be revisited throughout the course as when problems arise this is a great resource to turn back to in order to figure out how to handle how we want to handle problems. The group contract is the foundation as to how we came together as a group, therefore it's definitely important to turn back to it throughout the course for moments such as problems arising or when we want to remember how we were supposed to handle problems and work together.

01.A2 Evaluation through Reflection

1.Why is it worth taking time to build a detailed portfolio of a project?

It’s worth taking time because having a clear document that holds all of your work lets you know what is completed and what needs to be completed. Having a table of contents also helps with finding where exact assignments are located to help make the process easier.

2. Should the documentation of the events happen before, during, or after the process that is being described?

The documentation should happen after events since you would want to document your process once it has been completed. This is crucial to the project because there isn’t a point in documenting a hypothesis when the process hasn’t started yet.

3. How does working on the Expo project in a group affect the documentation of the process?

It causes the documentation to be completed faster with a high amount of individuals working on the process. Multiple eyes are on the process allowing more brainstorming and a higher output of ideas.

01.A3 Evaluation through Reflection

1.How can thoughtful team identity make the project more engaging overall?

Team identity is a really important thing to establish as a team as not only does it make the project more engaging, but makes us stand out from other teams. Through team identity we're able to develop and understand who we are as a team, allowing us to build our own identity. This allows us to overall stand out compared to other groups and make sure we have our own identity. In that way, people look at things like our logo, name, or how we submit work, and they automatically know that we are Radiant Roots.

2. How can thoughtful team identity make the audience understand the project more easily?

Team identity is very important in order to make sure the audience can gauge who we are and what we are about. When they see our logo for example that right there should already allow them to get a sense of what our project's main area of focus is. A strong team identity can allow a random person who knows nothing about our project, to get a sense of understanding through just seeing things such as the logo, or name, or color scheme of the group. Team identity allows the audience to easily understand what our project is about which is why it's an important thing to establish.

3. How might poor team identity influence the instructors' grading of your final portfolio?

Poor team identity will result in poor grading. If team identity is not established then everything will be disorganized as we didn't come together as a group to concisely format everything in a way that makes our assignments actually neatly put together. This again shows the importance of team identity as having a strong identity will also result in our work being more neatly put together, which ultimately means a higher grade overall as well which is very beneficial.

01.A4 Evaluation through Reflection

1.How does a glossary of terms benefit your audience?

Our audience will most likely not know a fair amount of terms we talk about or at least have basic ideas about these words, but with a glossary, our terms can be fully explained so if our audience was ever curious about a word and why it relates to our project then they can look at the glossary and learn about these terms and understand what they mean and get a better understanding as to how exactly these terms relate to our project.

2. How does a glossary of terms benefit your team members?

The glossary also benefits team members, in this way team members can add new terms to the glossary for others to see. If a team member is ever curious about a word, then with that they can also turn back to this assignment as well and learn about terms that other team members have written about in order to gain full context.

01.A5 Evaluation through Reflection

1.Why is it critical that a project team keep one centralized location for files and information such as a contact address book?

Teams must keep one centralized location for files and information such as the constant address book to maintain organization and to ensure that all team resources are constantly up to date.

2. Why is it important to keep a record of contacts made to resources that do not provide helpful information early in the project timeline?

It is important to keep a record of contacts made to resources that do not provide helpful information early on in the project as they can be helpful later on and, since they're already collected, it removes the redundancy of having to search for them again.

01.01 Evaluation through Reflection

1. Why is it important to make sure that your problem statement is detailed and specific?

We have to make sure that our problem statement is detailed so our audience can understand the problem we are trying to solve. How does this affect them and what is our solution?

2. What can be the negative results of a problem statement being too open-ended?

The main idea may not be understood. We want our problem statement to be straight to the point and understandable. We want our audience to not have any doubts or extra questions of what our product and problem is.

3. Why must a problem statement be so closely tied to the audience of your product?

The problem statement has to be closely tied to the audience because we want the problem to be something a lot of people can relate to. We want people to understand what the problem is and how this could potentially affect them.

01.02 Evaluation through Reflection

1. Why does each member of the project team need to be able to recite the elevator pitch?

It’s important to have every group member of the team know the elevator pitch and have the ability to recite it. Elevator pitches have the main purpose of informing a new person about a project in both an effective and timely manner. Informing a new person could happen at about any opportunity a new person is around, even out on the street a random stranger could be told about said project. As a group, we won't always be together meaning if we encounter random people individually and want to tell them about our project, we can't just rely on other teammates to tell them about the project especially if they aren't there, which is why it's important we individually know our elevator pitch, to always be prepared to speak about and inform new people about our project.

2. Educationally speaking, why is it important for this project to give student groups the freedom to write their problem statements and elevator pitches (as opposed to the instructors providing them for you as in previous school years)?

It's important for multiple reasons to allow us to make our own elevator pitches and problem statements. For starters, it just doesn't make sense if all the groups had the same ones, especially because we all are working on vastly different projects. Having just one problem statement/elevator pitch between all groups just won't work when no two projects between groups are remotely the same. Second, building our own statements/pitches allows us to research our problem and actually allows us as the creators to understand why this is a problem we genuinely should tackle and create a solution to. If we didn't make our own statements we wouldn't be able to then research our problems, not allowing us as creators to see why this is a genuine problem that needs to be solved.

01.03 Evaluation through Reflection

1. Why is it important to make sure the design brief is well-developed before beginning the project?

The design brief needs to be well-developed because this allows the deliverables and criteria to be acknowledged. This helps with understanding where you at and what needs to be done with the time you have.

2. Why is it important to share the design brief with your mentor?

It’s crucial to share the design brief with your mentor because they need to know your goals and your timeline. The team and mentor should be on the same page with goals since they are working together. The mentor needs to know our target audience and to whom the prototype is targeted.

01.05 Evaluation through Reflection

1. What could be a side effect of polling too few people?

Polling too few people is a pretty bad thing to do when conducting a poll. The point of a poll is to gain the opinion of a wide variety of people, it's important to get a large number of people in that case to be participants in your poll. The more people you have participating, the more opinions you can gather, resulting in less biased results and a better understanding of how the wider population feels about what you're polling about. In our case getting more participants allows us to get a better understanding as to how the public actually feels about our idea and the product we want to make.

2. Why is it important to acknowledge bias in polling?

Everyone is biased, people are full of biases, which is why for something such as polling it is important to acknowledge biases. Polls are meant to understand how a wide variety of people feel about a topic, they are supposed to be void of biases in order to fully get people's unfiltered thoughts and opinions about something. As a maker of the poll, it's important to acknowledge biases and make sure they aren't present in the poll being made, showing biases in the poll ruins the whole reason for making the poll as we don't get to understand people's true thoughts about a subject.

3. If you discover a bias after polling is complete, does that invalidate the results?

In a way it does. Polls will always be better when bias is void, that's the main thing that needs to be understood about polls. If the bias is small, this doesn't have the chance to potentially invalidate the results, but if it's a major bias, then yes it can invalidate the results since now you have a biased poll that doesn't get what people's actual thoughts are, therefore making the poll useless.

01.06 Evaluation through Reflection

1. Why do engineers rely so heavily on drawings to convey complex ideas to their audience?

Engineers rely so heavily on drawings to convey complex ideas to their audience as it is easier to explain complex ideas or mechanics with visuals which allow the audience to visualize the movement of the mechanics while being explained.

2. Why is “artistic skill” not a critical requirement to have successful sketches?

“Artistic skill” is not required to have a successful sketch as sketches are simply to help flourish ideas and illustrate specific mechanics. Therefore, as long as the drawing can convey the idea of the movement and mechanics of the object, it works as intended.

01.07 Evaluation through Reflection

1. Why is it important to research patents before beginning the Expo project?

We don’t want to take our idea as an original idea even if our idea is original. There could be the same product out there and we do not want to take that idea as our own.

2. What issues could arise if you don’t complete an extensive patent search before releasing a product?

We could potentially claim an idea as ours when that idea already belongs to someone else.

3. What is the difference between a patent and a trademark?

A patent is more of a product while a trademark is more of the legal ownership of a brand name or phrase. So we want our name to be something original and not something that already exists to not have any trademark issues.

4. What other aspects of your project do you need to continue diving into and researching?

We need to dive in more about plants. We know a lot about them but we need to experiment with them first because we don’t want the plants to not survive one temperature and survive the other.

01.08 Evaluation through Reflection

1. How does a list of criteria and constraints help evaluators of your project determine the effectiveness of your final solution?

Well now we have a vision about the future. We know what are constraints are and are going to try find a solution for these problems. We have a list of what we need and can come up with a budget and start looking for places to find the materials needed.

2. How does technology affect your criteria and constraints?

We don’t really have any coding so that aspect were good. We have solar panels and only one of our members has delt with them, so in that aspect most of us other members have to learn more about solar panels.

3. How does budget affect your criteria and constraints?

Budget is going to be big for our project. With the budget assignment we did earlier, we have found that our budget is at least $500, and we know we need more materials and perhaps need some backups. So our project is going to be expensive. We want to make sure none of us spend money and are able raise money. We want to buy used things or donated, we have to think about ways to raise money.

01.09 Evaluation through Reflection

1. How did you get input from your audience/mentor on your design specifications?

Our poll respondents gave us feedbacks after we explained what our product is, our mentor told us we could use batteries instead of generators, and instead of making a big greenhouse, we could make a small greenhouse.

2. If the product or system that your team develops is successful, how will you know?

We will know when the product is succesful when we have built a fully functional prototype that meets most of our criteria. We want the budget to be just right and we want this product actually to work.

01.10 Evaluation through Reflection

1. What message does it send to potential mentors if they find your website is not up to date or contains inaccurate information?

Suppose our website is not up to date and contains inaccurate information. In that case, this shows potential mentors that our team doesn’t care about the topic, which shows a lack of commitment and reflects a lack of responsibility.

2. What products have you researched that have eye-catching websites?

We have researched companies such as SunRun, Titan Steel Structures, Go Green Solar, and Renu Solution. These companies all have installation and manufacturing for solar panels and have extremely interactive websites.

01.11 Evaluation through Reflection

1. How does “summarizing the project so far” as a group benefit the design moving into Phase 02?

Summarizing the project so far is a really important thing to do before moving to phase 2. By doing this we as a group are able to take a moment to reflect on all the work we've done so far and take a look at the design we made. By doing this reflection we can look at our design, really figure out what we do and don't like about it, and be able to only improve from there. By reflecting on everything done so far we as a group can take the weaknesses we have, and figure out the solutions to these problems by phase 2 in order to make the strongest product we can make.

2. How can project reflection be used as a tool to explain to the instructors that educational growth is being accomplished by your group?

Through reflections, the instructor is able to see the lessons learned as a group. The instructor is able to gauge how we as a group have been operating and how we have been growing through the work that is being accomplished. This is why project reflections are not only helpful to those doing the reflecting but even to the instructor who gets the opportunity to see how we have been growing as our project develops.

Summary of the project's strengths and weaknesses as of P1.

So far our project is of course still at the beginning stages. We've determined things such as the items we need and the basic ideas of how we want the project to look and work. The strengths of our project at this point have to include the fact it's helping an actual problem. The problem of food insecurity is a genuine problem for many people not only in North Carolina but in the world. Our specific project wants to focus specifically on North Carolina though since it's where we as a team live and we don't have the resources to help the whole world. Another strength that is seen in our project is the resources we have such as our mentor. Thanks mainly to Julien who has access to a lot of great people, we do have people who can so easily help us out on this project and push our idea to be at the point of what we want it to be. Our project is nearly developed, we just need to make sure we know the specific items we want and how to put it all together to make sure our product works the way we want it to.

Since we are at the start of the project, we can't say it's perfect, there is still a fair amount of weaknesses so far that should be talked about. Such weaknesses include money. Solar panels especially are a pretty expensive item, and none of us have the money to just spend on solar panels for a school project. What this means is we have to take this weakness and think up of multiple solutions to combat this issue such as either as a group we raise money, or we as a group find companies or resources that could give us a solar panel for the project, which is not an unheard of idea, this exact thing happening. Or even potentially finding grants. Another weakness is definitely having to finalize our design, of course, this is something that will happen by phase two, so this weakness will end up turning into a strength, but right now it's an important weakness that will be dealt with soon enough.

Overall as our project continues to develop there are a fair amount of weaknesses that we as a group need to work on and develop solutions for. Budget for sure is one of our bigger issues if we don't find any companies willing to donate solar panels, it's up to us to get creative and find valid ways to raise the money to be able to afford said items. So far we do have a couple of ideas of companies we'd like to attempt to reach out towards, possibly Julien's connections with Duke as a said example, and we've sprinkled in some ideas about ways to potentially raise money since that is an important topic to discuss. As for finalizing the design, this is something that comes in due time, especially with phase two approaching, this is the time to really hone in on our design and figure out with full confidence what we as a team want to make for the benefit of the valid problem we face with the issue of food insecurity.

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