Solve a World Problem

Slide Presentation

The Engineering Process

Identify the need: We chose drought as our problem.

Research the problem: In our research we found that agricultural drought was the main cause of drought related economic crashes in small countries.

Develop possible solutions: We looked at many possible solutions for agricultural drought, rain water collectors, drip irrigation, etc.

Select most promising: In the end we chose to make a water collection system that would collect nuthouses water from under crops.

Prototype: we decided to make a prototype using chicken wire covered in cloth as the plant bed.

Test+evaluate: We found that the cloth we used did not let enough water through.

Redesign: We changed out the cloth for a mesh material that allowed a lot more water through.

Data Analysis

As I mentioned in our research we discovered that a main effect of drought is on agriculture. If farmers cannot grow their crops then many economies in small countries fail. This is why we decided to make a solution where farmers are the target buyers.

Reflection

Something that went well during this project was that we were able to use our research to create a solution to our problem. We also were able to use everyone's research to collaboratively create a solution.

Although things went well over all we still could have done things better. Sometimes we got distracted. This led some of us to get behind on our research work and delayed the entire process. When it came time to build the prototype to our solution, not everyone was clear on the blueprint and this prevented us from working together to finish the prototype most efficiently.