Exercises

Exercise 0: Made my Google site as well as added the honor pledge and my Github link.

Exercise 1: Bookmarked the course site, retrieved my Raspberry Pi from a previous Stevens course, and looked into the labs.

Exercise 2: The objective of my project is to protect a cell phone from damage as well as charge the phone through solar panels, which will all benefit the user of the phone as well as promote renewable energy charging sources. The target audience would be people with cell phones that are on the go and can sometimes be within a place to charge their phone. To accomplish this, I will create a phone case that offers top of the line impact resistance to the phone, whilst also having the capability to charge it through solar panels installed within the case. The expected results will be that users will be satisfied about having the ability to ensure their phone is both safe from damage and alive at all times. The cost can range anywhere from about $25 to $75, when factoring in the costs of the case itself and the solar panels.

Exercise 3:

PS-DS Strategy

• Present State: Phone cases that have charging capabilities mostly use batteries that are charged at home to store energy to use on the go.
• Desired State: Phone cases will be equipped with solar panels that can be used to harvest energy and charge phones on the go.
• Present State: The phone cases that do use solar panels are cheaply made, causing either the case to break or the phone to be damaged.
• Desired State: Phone cases can offer top of the line impact resistance to the phone as well as utilize renewable energy charging sources.

Kepner Tregoe Situation Analysis

• Timing: Every phone is generally getting more and more slim, making them more fragile and at risk to impact damages, and using a phone case has grown to almost be a necessity at this point in time. Since people know they pretty much need to spend money on phone cases anyway, they may want one that does more than just protect the phone.
• Trend: There has been a growing trend for people to start being more conscious of the planet and want to use more renewable energy sources, and reports show that both consumers and marketers are completing more of their day-to-day activities though mobile devices, so ensuring that your cell phone has a suitable amount battery life is becoming extremely important.
• Impact: A phone case equipped with solar panels will both promote renewable energy charging sources and users will be satisfied about having the ability to ensure their phone is both safe from damage and alive at all times.

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• What: People love their phones and want them to be alive and undamaged at all times, and people are willing to spend money on phone accessories that better the user experience.
• When: Manufacturers have made phone cases and ways to charge a cell phone on the go for years now, as protecting one's mobile device has been a problem since the day they were invented.
• Who: There are very few people in modern society that get around without some sort of mobile device.
• Where: Cell phone users bring their device pretty much everywhere, so being able to charge a phone at any place or time is very important.
• Why: People spend hundreds of dollars on cell phones and want to protect them, and they also constantly want to stay connected to the virtual world.
• How: Renewable energy is something that gets more important as time goes on, and implementing solar panels into a piece of technology that so many people use could have so much impact.

Exercise 4: The solar phone case should keep the device from impact damages whilst also allowing for the solar panels to stay safe and work as intended, so heavy testing must go into this aspect of the design. The phone cases also needs to be as little bulky as possible, which may be difficult given the amount that the case has to provide. We also want the solar panels to be able to easily harvest solar energy that can charge the battery within the case and store energy so that the case can charge the phone when needed, even when there is no light source. The phone cases should require as little maintenance as possible, and the case must not take away from the ability to use their phone in the same way they could without the phone case on. The technology and durability could all be there, but people also really care about aesthetics, so the phone case must be pleasing to look at so consumers will actually want it on their phone. Overall, the design goal is to create an attractive, durable phone case that charges the phone from solar energy.

Exercise 5: May have to worry about trademarks/copyrights from the companies of the phone's we want to make cases designed for, but overall there were not really any relevant results in terms of intellectual properties.

Exercise 6: System and Process Models

Exercise 7: Synthesis

Exercise 8: The phone case itself is going to be hard to misuse due to its simplistic design, but we must ensure that all electrical components remain inside the case and are out of reach of the user. Any electrical shocks or scratches from the glass solar panels must not happen, otherwise the user would not feel safe using the case. In addition, the charging capabilities of the case may decreases over time as the technology ages or the case is dropped or damaged in any way. The case may have disposal issues depending on the solar panels or battery used, but most likely there should not be an issue with simply throwing it away in the trash.

Exercise 9: The combat the hazards listed in the previous exercise, the durability of the case really needs to be good. It might be best to use a more heavyweight and bulky material that can keep the electrical components of the case much harder to reach and thus more protected. This also allows for us to use more of the funds to put towards using better solar panels/batteries, which increases the charging capabilities and helps to slow down the aging process of the case.

Exercise 10: Design Analysis

Exercise 11: Bookmarked the recommended websites and downloaded the Stevens Expo apps along with the collaboration apps.