Part K. Reflection on the design project
Team member #1 reflection and recommendations:
Andrew- I think overall this project could have gone much better if we researched a lot more before beginning the construction of the prototype. I believe that if we worked on the prototype a lot more earlier and not have waited until later, then we wouldn't be rushing to get the rest of the parts of the project done. It was a fun project to do though. I learned a lot about magnets and how they interact with each other. I realize that this project is mean't to teach us what life in the engineering field will be like once we get a job, a it taught me a lot. During the building part of the project we encountered multiple setbacks when trying to get the prototype to work. In the end we realized that our goal to create a magnetic motor using only fixed magnets and not putting electricity into the system, was a goal that was not achievable with the given time that we had. Our advisor however, told us that the process of building all of the prototypes is more important the the actual finished product, which is true now that I think about it. Our process can then help others who also pursue building a magnetic generator to avoid the mistakes that we did and use what we learned to build and improve on their own generator. It was a rough project no doubt, the multiple setbacks made me want to give up so many times that I can't count them on both my hands and I easily spent over 100 dollars on getting more materials for the multiple prototypes, but it was worth it. Knowledge is power, and like a said before, I learned a lot during this project. In the end, it was probably the most challenging thing that I have done in the engineering course by far, It is the final project of the senior year though. Now I know to not make the mistakes that I made during this project and prepare myself for a true job in the real world.
Team member #2 reflection and recommendations:
America- I learned it is extremely difficult to create a magnetic generator without thousands of dollars, considering most of the materials cost up to a hundred dollars, more time is definitely needed, and experience with previous prototypes. I believe more testing would have been very helpful, helping us throw away our bad ideas quicker. I would recommend more time and more money for a product like this, or looking for an expert on this field that will work one on one. I would recommend for others trying to create a generator try to find people who tried doing it before ask for advice and look more in depth on the work they did, and don’t test attempts people made before, it will waste time. I l did learn that it has been years that other people have tried to create a magnetic generator, there have been attempts that have worked but are not free from 100% error. I would recommend putting constraints on your product that makes impossible to create, but more efficient, our constraints made it way impossible for our product to work because we only wanted to get energy out of it without putting any energy in, and making our product really cheap, but our materials and budget made it impossible like mentioned before. I would say look more in depth to your problem, identify the people affected, come up with how many possible solutions there are, and research previous attempts and possible failures.
Team member #3 reflection and recommendations:
Jaehwa- I learned a lot during our capstone project. First of all, we ended up doing magnetic energy generator which was one of the Andrew's idea through the decision matrix. We thought this was going to work based on the video. But as we researched more and more, it cannot be accomplish by high school students with low budget. During the research, we found that three physicists with 3 PhD. degree did build this product with thousands of dollars. At that moment, I realized that our brainstorming ideas were pathetic. Another thing I learned was that the time management skill is very important for long project. Because, we weren't up to date with our weebly. I think we were just procrastinating and hoping for the best. I now understand why Ms. Zienty told us to choose a topic that we are interesting in. Because for our project, I just got bored and dragged. Overall, this project wasn't that bad compare to the other project. But, we just wasted our time a lot.