Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams

Happy Holidays from a cold and snowy Wisconsin! The Tesla Engineering Charter School’s InvenTeam, Project EcoFridge, is off to a great winter.  Since our last update we have further processed our technical expertise meeting.  One of the main ideas that was brought up at this meeting was the importance of defining the system that we wanted to make efficient, as well as proving experimentally what works and what doesn’t.  Due to this we began designing multiple experiments to test different aspects of possible refrigerator modifications.  Our team was also in contact with local hardware stores soliciting possible donations.  Lowe’s offered us the best deal on refrigerators. A brief dissertation on our selection to purchase a full size refrigerator as opposed to a mini-fridge:

Originally we were going to purchase mini-fridges to prove the concept of our design; however, to access the heat dissipating coils on the back of the common mini-fridge we would have had to have cut the skin of the mini-fridge apart.  Lowe’s also offered us a regular size refrigerator discounted to about the same price as a mini-fridge, except the HDC (heat dissipating coils) on the full size model we purchased are exposed to the open air.

After Lowe’s gave us a good deal on the refrigerators we went back and purchased other materials for our experiments.  We will be beginning our experiments as soon as class reconvenes from winter break.

Happy Holidays from the Oviedo InvenTeam! This month has been very eventful, and we are busily working ahead of schedule, keeping in check with our deadlines.  This month has been focused heavily around research and development, as we have finished constructing the three structures for our project.  Each one includes a UV lamp, a solar panel, a two-foot tall pyramid encased in either bubblewrap or heating wrap, temperature readers, and thermologgers.  We have finished our building phase, for the time being, and have moved into the data acquisition phase, which integrates both our technical team and our research team.

This week we have been testing temperature retention, by testing how well the material (either bubblewrap or heating wrap) retains heat after being heated by a day’s worth of sunlight, emulated by the UV light.  After a day’s worth of heat, we turn the light off and by using thermologgers and temperature recording software, see how well the inside of the pyramid retains heat.  The software takes temperature recordings at specified intervals, which we can then export and extract the data, import into a spreadsheet and/or graph, and further analyze what adjustments need to be made to ensure the best heat retention possible for each of the wraps. Later, we will choose the wrap with the best heat retention to use for our final prototype.

Our marketing team is working hard to get the word out about our InvenTeam, and has been very successful so far. We have appeared in over four newspapers, given a presentation to a group of Seminole Country science teachers, and most importantly, been invited by SolidWorks to attend SolidWorks World 2009 in Orlando, an international event, and have our invention displayed in the Product Showcase.  We are very excited about this.  We have many things to get ready for, which push our deadlines to earlier dates, but we are positive we can make all of our deadlines with a prepared, presentable project ready for SolidWorks.

Our finance team has bought everything that we need until over winter break, the account is balanced with the expected amount of money we planned to have, and we have been recording the receipts so that everything is documented.  Overall, we are right on target with everything so far, and we very excited for what is to come these next few months.

Our team made significant progress during the month of November, both in the technical aspect of the project and in improving our media and communication systems. Our engineering team has developed a functional model of a computer wire that illuminates when touched, and plans to move forward with that model. We have purchased some of the materials necessary for building the prototype, including USB wires for testing. Both our Budgeting and Media teams also made progress in November; with our financial coordinators actively maintaining our purchase records and our Public Relations Representatives responding to public inquiries regarding the project. During the month of December, we plan to further develop our illuminating wire model, and begin working with various power sources for the Torch Cord.

There is a mechanical engineering course offered at MIT called “Project Engineering Processes,” although most people refer to it by its course number, 2.009 (”two double-o nine” in MIT speak).  In this course, 7 teams of 15-20 college seniors are each given $6,500 and 3 months to build an alpha prototype of a product and a business plan to market it.  Sound familiar?  You can check out the course website here.

On Monday night, I went to see their final presentations, and they were all dazzling.  Each year, the class is given a different theme, and this year’s was “The Home.”  The projects ranged from an ergonomic braille label maker to a spark-detecting microwave with fire extinguishing capabilities.   In addition to demonstrations of each product, the teams talked about the technical hurdles that they overcame, the key innovations in their designs, cost-effectiveness of manufacturing the products, and to whom these products would be marketed.  Although, I thought the most interesting (and most relevant to InvenTeams) aspect of the presentations was hearing about the process of going from idea to prototype.  You can watch the presentations here.

Despite the fact that we are not asking you to develop business plans and marketing strategies for your inventions, these videos may still be useful to you as examples of what makes a good presentation.  And why did each team receive the score that they did from the audience?

Oh, and one more cool thing.  I was poking through the resources on the 2.009 website, and came across this list of anchor quantities that had been compiled by previous classes.  Anchor quantities are measurements or statistics that are useful benchmarks when trying to estimate design feasibility.  For example, students calculated that it took between 4 and 6 million trees to print all of the existing Harry Potter books.  Take a look!