Project Thoughts & Considerations
This page is to show the growth of my project, Intelligence I've gained, as well as strengths and values built.
Summary
My end project is designed to protect cars from environmental damages such as rust, heat (from the sun), and hail. My project over time changed from a hard exoskeleton that attached to the wheels, to becoming a new concept. Integrating it into a car bumper only to have that idea scratched at the professional review night. After multiple designs, iterations, and prototypes guided me to build the portable inflatable car cover. The inflatable car cover would deploy from its storage hub. It would need to be zipped up around the car, then, It would inflate to create a barrier between the car and outside.
Challenges
The top challenges that I can think of are learning Fusion 360, Understanding how gears work, and Making an animation in Fusion 360.
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Fusion 360 by its self is difficult to learn, like any software program you just have to know what buttons to press and when to create the shape you want. The second challenge, understanding how gears work. In one of my mini prototypes I had to understand how gears work because I needed my storage hub to move up and down while spinning. I started learning about worm gears and then I looked at a 3D-Printer because I saw how the bed of the device worked and that is what I needed my project to do. I quickly learned that it was called a spindle screw. That allowed for further development of this middle revolving screw (almost looks like a washing machines agitator). The last challenge was making the animation in Fusion 360. This by far was the hardest part of the project. The reason is because I haven't animated anything before so I had no prior experience. It took a 4 weeks and a ton of brain power for me to figure out how the program knows where the objects are in relationship to one another. Learning that allowed me to move the pieces where they should go so you can see it deconstructed, then reconstructed.
Rewards
I would say the 3 most rewarding things of this were being able to use all my skills and having the freedom to work on any project I wanted to. Another rewarding part of this class is that I felt like I got to break away form the typical teenagers and work on something that has meaning. We were tackling real world problems and coming up with valid solutions to fix them. The last thing I found rewarding is that I actually got to complete a big STEAM assignment. With COVID-19 taking away my Sophomore and Junior year I didn't really get to complete a assignment. To me they all felt rushed and not held to the same rigor that a in person project would have.
Future Connection
"How are you going to use these last 4 years to launch you forward?"
These last 4 years taught me a couple key values. First they taught me who I am. I am a tinkerer, imaginator, creator, do-er, engineer. These words sum up my educational background. I genuinely enjoy learning and the STEAM program allowed me to learn in a constructive way.
STEAM introduced me to the Engineering field. Currently, I am enrolled at the University of Minnesota - Duluth campus where I will be majoring in civil engineering at the Swenson College of Science and Engineering. Without the STEAM background I currently think Ide be stuck still figuring out a major.