The creative engineering design project was a project where my group and I had to identify a specific world problem and create a system or an object to help solve that problem. My group and I choose the education system as our problem and brainstormed many different aspects of the system that we could improve. The specific topic we choose was school start times and how they affect middle and high school students. From there we researched the affects of early start times on teens brains and what solutions to this problem have already been tested. We decided that middle and high school students should have school start later 8:30 am because of research done by the CDC and ASA.
We then created a slideshow to show to the data we found during research and posed our solution to the problem. We plan to take our solution to the NUSD board to see if we can change the start times with the new schedule we created. Below is the slideshow we created with our solution.
We then created a slideshow to show to the data we found during research and posed our solution to the problem. We plan to take our solution to the NUSD board to see if we can change the start times with the new schedule we created. Below is the slideshow we created with our solution.
In this project we used the engineering design cycle to help solve our world problem. The engineering design cycle is a list of steps that make it easier and more to clear to create a prototype or in out case create a solution to the problem.
The Deign Cycle Steps are
The Deign Cycle Steps are
- Identify the need- We identified that the education system needed improvement in many aspects but decided to focus on school start times
- Research the problem- My group and I researched many tests done my the CDC and ASF that proved middle and high schools starting before 8:30 am had students that had lower test scores and suffered from depression and obesity more than students who started school after 8:30am. We found 12 credible sources that proved again this to be true with the US news article adding that schools who started after 8:30 am saw a 70% decrease in car accidents involving teens around their school.
- Develop Possible Solutions (Brain Storming)- My group and I thought of different ways to make the start time of 8:30 am possible and some consisted of switching the elementary school and high school start times to make it easier for parents to drop off multiple kids and another solution was creating lunch shorter so we can fit in athletic practices after school.
- Select the most promising solution- We selected the solution of switching the elementary school and high school start times to reach our goal of starting school at 8:30 am and to make it easier for parents to drop off their kids. We noticed that elementary school aged children often got up earlier and were more awake earlier in the day than high school students were.
- Construct a prototype- We constructed a new schedule for high schools that is shown in our power point.
- Test and evaluate the prototype- We are still in the process of making the NUSD board test our prototype to start schools later.
- Communicate the design- We communicated our design through our power point by putting the schedule on the power point and plan to present this power point to NUSD.
- Redesign- We redesigned our schedule multiple times to fit our goal of starting after 8:30 am and still having the mandatory amount of minutes per week for public schools in California.
- Repeat- We plan to repeat this project in the future after we present it to NUSD and they give us feedback to our schedule.
Reflection: During this project I learned many things that can help me in future projects and in my life. Two positives I can take away from this project have to do with my work ethic skills and trust in other group mates. I learned that if I focus 100% of the time and really lead my group I can create a great project that can help others. The other positive is my trust in other peoples ideas. In this project I adapted to another group members idea and it turned out great. Instead of sticking to my own agenda I trusted my peers and their idea turned out to be a productive fun thing to help improve.
Two negatives from this project were my absence from school for many days due to sickness and another is the presentation itself. I was sick, and missed many days where I could have been helping the group but that is not really in my control. The presentation could have been more original and my group and I could have created something other than a slideshow to present to the class. There is always room for improvement with these skills and I hope to use these negatives to build off of in the future.
Two negatives from this project were my absence from school for many days due to sickness and another is the presentation itself. I was sick, and missed many days where I could have been helping the group but that is not really in my control. The presentation could have been more original and my group and I could have created something other than a slideshow to present to the class. There is always room for improvement with these skills and I hope to use these negatives to build off of in the future.