Monday, November 28, 2016

Nov 28th- GRNG 201/301- Progress reports

Plastics Recycling

Short-term goals:
  • Need to find more efficient ways of cutting up plastic bottles
  • Collect more plastic milk jugs
  • Make another 'pennyboard' deck
  • Figure out a better way to melt plastic- use an oven?
Long-term goals-
  • Obtained a plastic shredder
  • Improve efficiency at melting/ovens
Road Blocks:
  • Get trucks and wheels for skateboards( see Amazon for examples)
  • Need more( clean!)plastic milk jugs- need issue solicitation for materials

Bike Squad

Short-term goals accomplished:
  • Bicycle clamp perfected for repair stand
  • Improved mechanical advantage of bike stand, stronger structure
  • Drew circuit schematic for music bike
  • Improved bike stand adjustability
Long-term goals accomplished:
  • Bicycle repair stand built
Road-Blocks:
  • Structural integrity of bike stand
  • Approval
  • We need supplies

Aquaponics Group

Short-term goals accomplished:
  • New system design
  • Restarted old large system
  • Completed a water cycle in our tank
  • Prototype for auto fish feeder
  • Gathered wood from pallets to panel tank
Long-term goals accomplished:
  • We are still in the short-term phase
Road-Blocks to progress:
  • Getting off-task/losing focus
  • Killing fish
  • Killing plants
  • Not having enough wood
  • Christmas music
  • Messing up grow-bed water flow
  • Interpersonal conflicts(?)
Needs:
  • Fish
  • Pallets

Soap Group

Short-term goals accomplished:
  • Make soaps from one oil to determine individual oil properties
  • Create literature that conveys the message of our project
  • List materials that we need
Long-term goals accomplished:
  • Prototype one soap recipe to a good formula, and produce a large batch
  • Presented the making of soap to a semi-large public audience
Road Blocks:
  • Waiting for materials to arrive
  • Keeping ourselves busy while we wait for materials
Items for Mr. Peloquin-
  • Our project needs successors to continue after we leave
  • Our success this year should involve making formulas and pushing out a large quantity of soap
  • We need to create a successful soap-making kit

Mr. Dietz

Short-term goals accomplished:
  • Rebuilt Weebly site to be more user-friendly, especially for outside public- course outlines, detailed project descriptions, blogs, tools, resources, etc.
  • Edited substantial new content for site- links, images, video
  • Rebranded Weebly site:  http://greengineers.org
  • Created new blog http://greenengineeringdietz.blogspot.com/ with over 70 detailed posts, including photos and videos
  • Set up and stocked electronics/Arduino parts section
  • Organized tool section, improved tool supply, especially for electronics,sanding, screws, wrenches, and drills
  • Downloaded, printed, mounted, and posted useful engineering posters from MIT D-Lab and Nu-Vu
  • Provided technical assistance to student projects Xplorers, 101's, 201's
Long-term goals:
  • Increased traffic to site
  • Became conversant with Greengineering curriculum
Road Blocks:
  • Need more feedback from student and teacher users of Weebly site to make further improvements
  • Need to improve purchasing procedures to make supportive of project-based learning( i.e., shorter turn-around time).

Mr. Peloquin

Short-term goals accomplished:
  • 4 student projects in process for 201/301's, plus Xplore projects
  • Each team has made a SmartSheet Gantt chart to outline their project
  • Each team has well-defined goals
  • 201's have started a new student blog http://greengineering1.blogspot.com/ 
  • Website has been updated
  • Organized evaluation of real-world prototype( SparcWire)
  • Ordered project supplies
Long-term goals accomplished:

Road-Blocks:
  • Student teams often think that they can come into Greengineering lab and just hang out; will be instituting weekly Design Reviews to help keep groups on track; implementing student-driven projects requires a change in mindset.
  • Teams not keeping an eye on Gantt Chart schedule
  • Teams not getting feedback before building- soliciting and incorporating user feedback is key to the Design Thinking/Engineering process:

Additional information:
  • Teams need to stay on track, and ask for help when they are off track.

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