Solve a World Problem

Engineering Design Cycle

1. Identify Need

In order to chose the problem we wanted to solve we had to brain storm. Originally we were between the issues of closed doors, high fives missing, and another sort of irrelevant topic. We decided the more plausible and actually resolvable issue was the closing doors, so that's what we chose.

2. Research Problem

Over then span of just a few days, my group and I researched and discovered many different reasons why one would want their door closed such as fire prevention, noise reduction, privacy, and overall door safety. We were told at this time to refrain from trying to create solutions.

3. Brainstorm Solutions

The specific problem we chose to solve was "how do you make doors open and close easier," and we came up with a few solid solutions, such as revolving doors, automatic doors, or large doors that work similar to dog doors.

4. Choosing a Solution

Though we came up with multiple, brilliant solutions, we wanted these doors to be able to be implemented inside the average home for a relatively affordable cost. So we chose to just change the door hinges rather than the entire door frame, making it more cost efficient. By using a butler door hinge it allows the door to swing open and closed to completion freely, while keeping the actual alterations of the door at a minimum.

5. Developing a Prototype

Luckily, the butler door hinge was already invented, but in order to improve upon this idea we added a sliding lock to allow for even more privacy. In order to display this mechanism, we build a door frame and door out of wood and added the door hinges, making it into a "JAMS door."

6. Testing and Evaluating

Sadly, our door didn't function completely as we thought, but of course it's a prototype, so it's still being developed. The door scraped against the ground and could hardly swing open at all, let alone close. We tried to fix this, but we couldn't do so without disassembling the entire project and we didn't have that sort of time.

7. Improving Prototype

Unfortunately, we didn't complete this part of the engineering design process, however in the future hopefully we'll have the time to do so.

Reflection

While other groups chose larger more abstract problems like depression and sleep deprivation, my group and I chose a very concrete, solvable topic. Which I think was logical, but sort of missed the entire idea of the project. It also made it more difficult to research because unlike depression, there aren't a lot of statistics on doors. We had to get really creative about what specific topics we researched especially to find purely educational websites. It took a lot of information to have enough significant proof to make open doors seem like a world epidemic, but with enough inventive googling, we had enough.

However, while researching, which was a large portion of the project, I feel as though my group didn't work jointly, but rather we each researched our own topics and did our own slides and didn't really collaborate. But instead of collaboration, we rather demonstrated cultural competence. The entire purpose of this project was to do something to benefit others, by solving a world problem. We chose a very simple problem, but it does effect teens everywhere, and we sought out to solve it.