Design Process

steps to take:

  1. Define the Problem

  2. Generate Alternative Solution

  3. Evaluate & Select a Solution

  4. Detail the Design

  5. Defend the Design

  6. Manufacture & Test

  7. Evaluate the Performance

  8. Prepare the Final design Report

(1)Problem to Overcome: Design a robot that is able to escape structural damage in its enviroment from a man made or natural disaster.

(2)Brainstorm: My group accesed the situation and decided we would need a course for the robot to attack and be able to escape sucessfully no matter the obstacle. Some of my group members questioned if the course should have multiple different exits with many obstacles or one exit with less fallen objects to resemble a stair well. For the robots shape we ruled out a large robot and are deciding between a small and medium sized one.

(3)Decision Time:My group decided that for our course we would have to find an obstacle course that was rigorous enough for the robot to not only overcome but actually imitate a disaster. We decided that one exit would be the best to do so. Also adding in certain areas the robot was not able to go to emulate fallen objects. For the robots design we thought it would be best if it was not too big so it was able to still overcome these obstacles. We decided for the robot to be a small size. We came to this conclusion so the robot would able to get into tight spaces as most humans would be able to.

(4)Distinctive Details: The details of our design are shown in our obstacle course and in our robot design. Our different sketches and ideas allowed us to differntiate which obstacles stimulated the right enviroment, and helped us weed out the best version of the robot to be successful in the enviroment.

(5)Why is it the best: As a group we are confident in the design of both our course and robot. As a group we have tried to think of the many different possible situations the robot would have to maneuver through. We all presented our ideas knowing that not all were perfect but had some great key concepts, collabortively allowing us to tie those key concepts into one big picture helping us get to the solution we are now at.

(6)Testing Process: During our trial and error process, we had encountered the robot to be consistently running into the areas we wanted it to avoid. This had led us to choosing the smaller robot and paying closer attention to the coding we were using. We did not have any major issues other than trying to figure out how to avoid the obstacles and get to the one exit succesfully, which eventually we did through the precise and consistent work of evaluating and running the code.

(7)Robot's Performance: The robot we used is quick and steady enough to direct people out of harms way efficiently, making it a great benefit to this exact situation. We believe we organized our time well, but our collaborative design in the robot was not as well as what we had expected. This was because we could not all be on the file to design at once but instead had to screen share and have only one indivisual attacking the situation with others giving their input.

(8)Is It Prepared: Yes this is our final design report.