Design steps 5,6,7, and 8 were the final steps in the Capstone project. In design step 5, we completed a Design Defense for our original project. In design steps 6 & 7 we did manufacturing and and performance testing. Finally, in design step 8 we made our design report and presented our final Capstone project at STEM graduation night. See all the components of these design steps below!
Link to our Capstone Project Website: https://sites.google.com/students.nusd.org/namkcapstoneproject/home
Marketing Material- Business Cards & Flyers
For our final presentation we printed 250 business cards, and 10 flyers. This allows people interested in our project to take a card or flyer so that they would have our contact information and be able to contact us.
Design and Defense Report & Presentation
Final Presentation
Our team consists of four San Marin High School Seniors. We have all been a member of the STEM program for all four years of high school, and will graduate this year with recognition of our STEM pathway.
Nathan Farrington - nafarrington22@students.nusd.org
Katie Cook - kacook@students.nusd.org
Melissa Schneider - meschneider@students.nusd.org
Allison Branch - albranch@students.nusd.org
Desalination: the process by which the dissolved mineral salts in water are removed.
Filter: A water filter removes impurities by lowering contamination of water using a fine physical barrier, a chemical process, or a biological process.
Prototype: A first, typical or preliminary model of something, especially a machine, from which other forms are developed or copied.
Biodiversity: The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.
3D printer: A machine allowing the creation of a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many thin layers of a material in succession. We used a 3D printer to construct our funnel.
Survey: A general view, examination, or description of someone or something. We surveyed fellow students to get insight on what they would like to see in our device. We plan on making more surveys and gathering more data from a broader group of people.
Mentor: An experienced and trusted adviser.
Functionality: The quality of being suited to serve a purpose well; practicality.
The final steps of the Capstone project went well for my group and I. We were very productive and made great progress with our prototype. We also finished all of our assignments early, so we are making progress with time management. Two areas we excelled in were Communication and Critical Thinking. We demonstrated great communication by listening to everyone's ideas/ concerns, and using evidence to support all of our claims. We also demonstrated critical thinking by using research and evidence to guide our decision making, and coming up with multiple ways to solve our problems. We are very proud of our results and analysis of our experiments. Our presentation went well and we are happy that people enjoyed our product.
Two areas that we could have done better on were Character and Conscientious Learning. While we improved a lot from Capstone Design Step 1 & 2, we still have room to grow in these areas in future phases of the project. We can always improve our character by being more respectful to each other. In the future respecting everyone's ideas and giving everyone equal opportunities could help us move along faster. We also improved our conscientious learning a ton from the last phases, but we can always improve in this area. We focused on putting a cap on the amount of time used to brainstorm, and had more time to work on other projects. We really utilized our Gannt Chart this phase, and sticking to the deadlines we set for ourselves greatly improved our productivity. I am excited to continue this project and can't wait to see our project come together.