Solve a World Problem

Our Assignemnt

Our goal for this project was to come up with a practical, long term solution for a problem that has been ruining lives all over the world. The problem we chose was smokestacks. Our group had about a 2 weeks to come up with a presentation that explains what our world problem is, how it is affecting the world, how we can solve the problem, and the research we did to back it up. Smoke Stacks cause major air polution which have been found to lead to major health issues.

Our Work

Content:

Engineering Design Cycle

1. Identify the Need- We did this by coming up with as many world problems that we could think of. Then we chose vaping and the health issues it causes.

2. Research the Problem- Every member of our group chose three or more sources to annotate and analyze. Each member was instructed to write 50 annotations so that they understood the problem and their research.

3. Develop Possible Solutions (Brainstorm)- Our group brainstormed by putting on a timer for five minutes and writing down every idea that came into our heads. It din't matter how 'good' or 'bad' the idea was because there are no dad ideas when brainstorming.

4. Select the most Promising Solution- We then looked over each idea and asked ourselves it was reasonable for us to achieve, if would solve the problem well, if it was moral, and if it was over the best possible solution. My group decided to put filters on the smokestacks to avoid the amount of polution that they put into the air.

5. Construct a Prototype- My group then drew out what the fliters would look like. We showed each layer of the filter and what it was made of and how big it was.

6. Test and Evaluate Prototype- After we constructed our prototype, we made sure we knew everything we could possibly know about our model.

7. Communicate the Design- My group and I created a slideshow and presentation that explained why smokestacks are bad for the environment and why they leave so much polution in the air.

Reflection

I really did enjoy this project. This project was a great project because my group and I got to help come up with a solution for a problem that we personally care about. My group and I had some troubles along the way with our project but after a lot of hard work we got the project all done. For this porject I was with 2 other people so we were a group of 3. That was already a struggle because we didn't have a lot of peoples thoughts or opinions about our solutions. Another problem that my group and I had to overcome was that I had covid for the first week so we were very behind. Our group overcame this by working together over the phone to get this project done in time.

Something that I did well during this project was communication with my group. It was very hard to get things done when two of the group members were at school while I was at home. I did a very good job communicating with my group from home to get this project done in time. Next time if we could do this project again I would try to be more involved with my group concidering last time there wasn't much I could do from home.