8P1 - Marketing

What I made is a volleyball key chain. I chose to make this because I can imagine that there aren't very many volleyball products in the store, and I believe that there are many volleyball players that would like to invest in a product like this; I know that I would. My key chain is a very nice piece of decoration for a lanyard or backpack. My lanyard is solid blue to support our school colors, has a strong outline of how it resembles a volleyball, and has a perfect loop for the string or chain to connect this key chain to what you wish to put it on.

I learned a lot from building this product. I learned that if there is a slight curve in your design; a spaghetti monster will be created. I learned this the hard way. In my case, there was a curve to my rounded shape and I didn't really think much of it until we printed it. As it shows in a few pictures above, there was a defined learning experience that occurred. When I made my second and tweaked version, I made sure that the base of the shape was flat that way there would be no new surprises in my new print. Another thing I learned when making this was really just common sense but just didn't really come to my mind. This was that the prototype should be laying flat and not standing tall because otherwise it would for sure not print regularly. I don't know what would've happened if it was standing straight up (it was fixed), but I can just imagine that it would not have looked very pretty or clean. So, again, in the second attempt, I laid the item flat that way it would all print evenly.

Out of the 7 standards of the class, I think that I used innovative designer digital citizenship. I say this because I came up with my own design and created it all my myself and I did all of this online and through the digital world. So I for sure think that I used these 2 standards.

One challenge that I overcame was trying to figure out how to make a hole. It took me a little bit to figure out how to do it, and when it was selected to be a hole I wasn't quite sure if it was right and if it was actually going to work as a hole. So we printed it and it was right and so that was one of the challenges that I had to overcome to make the key chain right.

One thing that I would do differently or change would be to make the product smaller. I think that it was a little too big compared to a regular key chain. I think this would have been an easy fix but since this was my first print ever I wasn't quite sure what the measurements would be like and so I made it was I thought would be a good size but clearly wasn't. So what I would definitely change in the future would be to make this smaller and more convenient for a lanyard or something of a similar size.

I think that this project ties to the career of engineering because I made it myself and came up with the idea myself. At the high school, I think that this project would connect to marketing because of it being made to sell. Lastly, this could connect to inventing because I made this myself and this style of this product has not yet been created as far as I know of.