Research Ideas

Towards the end of November, we decided we needed to install and test the ACAT software for any potential issues that may be encountered by the user. What we discovered from testing the ACAT software was that it did a pretty good job of reading facial movements, but when a person with glasses tried to use it, the glare from the glasses would cause the software to malfunction. After identifying the problem, we made a couple of initial sketches, but none of them worked because the designs we had made did not work with the constraints that we had on our project.

Conceptual Plan

Since we have a decent amount of time until the regional competition, our team decided that it is possible for us to create a final design and start the prototyping stage. After deciding on a final design before the beginning of winter break, we would be able to start any CAD modeling on Inventor or Fusion 360 during the break, and hopefully have it done by the time we get back to school. As of now in time we have decided that there will be five different parts to the wheelchair mount, and they will be assembled in Inventor. Furthermore, since the focus of the Career Pathways Showcase is to demonstrate the process we went through to achieve our end project, or close to it, we need to work on a poster and a speech that will be an accurate representation to the process we underwent and how it affected our community. This presentation will hit all the marks on our design process and how far we have gotten. Once we have gotten back from regionals we can continue to perfect our presentation so it will be even better for states.

Our Strategy

In order to be successful in the competition, we decided it would be important to follow the criteria listed below, which is what the judges will be grading us on:

Knowledge Attained

150

Demonstration/Evidence of Technical Skill

150

Presentation Skills

200

Integration of Business/Industry

150

Community Impact

200

Overall Effect

150

Demonstration/Evidence of Technical Skill and Integration of Business/Industry: Will be focused on during the remainder of this first semester and winter break.

Other criteria: Will be focused on during winter break and next semester.

Most of the criteria that were relevant to us focus on the quality of the presentation. For example, the presentation was graded on how we presented our solution and how professional we were about it. The community impact, the overall effect, and knowledge attained are manners addressed in the presentation in which we explain what we’ve learned through this experience, what effect the presentation has on the judge, and how our solution and engineering impact the community. It was important that we hit all these marks on the criteria in order to get a good score.

Assignment of Values

Cost: The cost is the amount of money we will be spending on our working prototype of the design. This section is very critical because our prototype has many different types of electronic equipment such as computers, cameras, or even a VR headset, that we may have to purchase. As a group of high-school students we do not have a lot of money that we are able to spend on our different prototypes, but the main point of concern is that our goal is to make the cost of the design a lot cheaper than current costs are right now. As a result, it would be in our best interest to make a low-cost prototype.

Ease of Use: This section of the criteria is how easily we want our consumer to be able to operate our design. And the best would be if it is very consumer friendly, allowing many people to be able to use this product.

Versatility: Versatility is how well our device will operate under different circumstances, such as when it is dark outside, light outside, or there is a lot of movement in the background.

Effectiveness of Communication: This category is very important because our design needs to give the end user the ability to communicate with someone effectively. If we are not able to make the end user's life easier, then there would be no reason to use our wheelchair mount.

Portability: This is how easily the product can be taken everywhere, ours needs to be very easily portable because it helps people communicate, and people communicate in all circumstances and places.

Producer: At this point in time we do not have a producer, but we will continue to update this part in the future.

Distributor: At this point in time we do not have a distributor, but we will continue to update this part in the future.