Evidence of Work
During this project, my group had to chose a problem that the world has today and attempt to come up with a solution. We chose to find a way to help make wildfires less deadly. While brainstorming ways to possibly solve the wildfire problem, we came up with a large list of ideas that ranged from cutting out all of the foliage in forests to genetically modifying worms to eat fire. We eliminated most of the ideas and finally selected one to build on. Our solution involved drones with fire retardant packages that would be constantly on patrol over wildfire-prone areas.
After our work was done, we had a final plan for helping prevent wildfires. Instead of drones with fire retardant, they would be modified to carry thermal cameras that detected the fires and then alerted the fire department. I found a map of where the most wildfires are started in California and we decided to use the Shasta-Trinity National Forest as an example. It turned out that to buy enough drones and charging pads to cover the whole forest, it would cost over 12 million dollars. The main features of our solution were a modified DJI Mavic pro drone and FLIR C2 thermal camera.
During this project, my group had to chose a problem that the world has today and attempt to come up with a solution. We chose to find a way to help make wildfires less deadly. While brainstorming ways to possibly solve the wildfire problem, we came up with a large list of ideas that ranged from cutting out all of the foliage in forests to genetically modifying worms to eat fire. We eliminated most of the ideas and finally selected one to build on. Our solution involved drones with fire retardant packages that would be constantly on patrol over wildfire-prone areas.
After our work was done, we had a final plan for helping prevent wildfires. Instead of drones with fire retardant, they would be modified to carry thermal cameras that detected the fires and then alerted the fire department. I found a map of where the most wildfires are started in California and we decided to use the Shasta-Trinity National Forest as an example. It turned out that to buy enough drones and charging pads to cover the whole forest, it would cost over 12 million dollars. The main features of our solution were a modified DJI Mavic pro drone and FLIR C2 thermal camera.
Content
To complete this project, we followed the engineering design cycle, which is explained step by step below.
During this project, my creativity showed itself. I designed a sort of strange looking flight pattern for the drones and came up with the idea for the drones to be modified to have wireless charging. The brainstorming step was fun because we could say any idea and use our creativity. My time management was good during this project. From the beginning, I was on track. I finished my research on time. We were the first group to get to the brainstorming stage. We had time to practice and because of that our presentation went well. I have the Gantt chart to thank for my time management this project. I hope we can use that strategy in the future.
My areas to improve for the creative engineering design project are organization and focus. Although my time management was good, I did not work as diligently as I could have. For example, when we were researching what type of drone to use, I got distracted by the thermal camera that Mr. Williams provided for us to look at. Next project, I will keep in mind what is most important and finish my work before relaxing. Also, during this project my organization was not great. A perfect example of this was when we were putting together our presentation. I made the slides all out of order and sloppy, with different font sizes and fonts on different pages. If it weren't for Kaleb, the presentation would have been very sloppy. This plays into focus a little, so to improve this, I will focus more and make sure my work is not only quality, but also looks good.
To complete this project, we followed the engineering design cycle, which is explained step by step below.
- Identify Need - First, we had to find a problem that needed to be solved. We chose wildfires.
- Research the problem - After we decided what problem we would be solving, we had to put some research into the topic to get a grip on what we were dealing with. My group each looked at three articles on wildfires and annotated them.
- Develop possible solutions - This was literally just brainstorming any possible solutions to the problem, no matter how crazy or improbable.
- Select the most promising solution - The title says it all. We narrowed our possible solutions to the problem down to three possible solutions, but we selected one to build on. Its basis was drones with thermal cameras flying over forests to detect wildfires and put them out with fire retardant.
- Construct a prototype - We went to Mr. Williams with our idea to have drones with fire retardant and he immediately saw its flaws and informed us of them. Drones would not be powerful enough to carry fire retardant, and even if they could, it wouldn't be enough to put out a fire.
- Test and evaluate the prototype - We pretty much covered this step in the step above. Being evaluated by Mr. Williams was the only test we could actually run because our idea was theoretical.
- Communicate the design - We sort of switched up the order a little here, because we communicated our design in our final presentation. However, talking to Mr. Williams was definitely telling someone about our design.
- Redesign - My group had a lot of redesigning to do after the steps above. First, we changed our whole idea to drones that could detect fires, then alert the fire department. We selected a drone, a thermal camera, and designed a flight pattern for the drones to fly. We also chose a sample area in California that the drones would patrol, Shasta-Trinity National Forest. We calculated costs based on the square miles in the Shasta-Trinity forest because the amount of drones and their charging stations would be determined by how many miles there were.
- Repeat - If we were to continue this project, we would have changed a lot of things. In the end, though, we decided that this solution was not worth its massive costs, so there was no repeat.
During this project, my creativity showed itself. I designed a sort of strange looking flight pattern for the drones and came up with the idea for the drones to be modified to have wireless charging. The brainstorming step was fun because we could say any idea and use our creativity. My time management was good during this project. From the beginning, I was on track. I finished my research on time. We were the first group to get to the brainstorming stage. We had time to practice and because of that our presentation went well. I have the Gantt chart to thank for my time management this project. I hope we can use that strategy in the future.
My areas to improve for the creative engineering design project are organization and focus. Although my time management was good, I did not work as diligently as I could have. For example, when we were researching what type of drone to use, I got distracted by the thermal camera that Mr. Williams provided for us to look at. Next project, I will keep in mind what is most important and finish my work before relaxing. Also, during this project my organization was not great. A perfect example of this was when we were putting together our presentation. I made the slides all out of order and sloppy, with different font sizes and fonts on different pages. If it weren't for Kaleb, the presentation would have been very sloppy. This plays into focus a little, so to improve this, I will focus more and make sure my work is not only quality, but also looks good.