This is a blog style page that has entries updated weekly. Pictures, videos, and other media should be used liberally. Your maintenance of this page will largely determine the blog check part of your grade.
During this week our group got together to talk discuss what project we wanted to do by narrowing down ideas. First we knew that our area of interest was residential buildings and using sustainability to make one's life easier to become more green. We then narrowed down to what parts about a residential building we wanted to change and this is where we all agreed upon making recycling more of a crucial part of an everyday lifestyle. This is where the idea of the automatic household recycling identification system (AHRIS) was thought of. The original idea that was come up with was a scanner set into a box that read the different material and whether it was plastic, metal, paper, or trash. Then with the current classification of the material, the AHRIS would use gravity to drop the trash into the corresponding bin. This week's task was to think of an idea concept and idea, then create a blog helping describe weekly progress, and to finally finish the project proposal.
This week, we decided that the picture above would be the design our prototype will be based upon. The goals of this week was two one, get a collective consensus about the idea of the design then two, start rending each part to create a digital small scale of our prototype. However, the group hasn't decided upon the dimensions of this respected prototype. We wanted this to be able to be constructed in an everyday residential house, and to implement that we knew it needed to be cheap. There is nothing that says we can't increase the size, therefore implementing it into hotels and larger work buildings. But for this project we have decided and thought it would be best to just stick with the residential structure and designs. Another design based problem we need to add into our design is a way that allows the owner to realize when the bin is closed. The group thinks the best way to do this is by making a device that reads constant pressure on the lid signifying that the bin is closed. Another solution we have discussed is having it signify when a bin is at a specific weight, which then signifies its full with the same light. The last issue we have to tackle was how the AHRIS was going to be able to fit inside an everyday house without increasing its size, if this is even possible. The first step to addressing this problem will be too implement dimensions throughout the drawing. Then by looking at the structural plans of a house we will be able to see if there is any regular space inside either the wall, or extending a countertop for it to be able to fit comfortably.
Week three:
After our group sat down and discussed what we were all truly interested in with our different majors, we decided to switch our project for the rest of the term. We still knew we wanted to deal with sustainability and improving the immediate environment around us to not only improve our everyday lives but make our world more green and make our world more sustainable through residential living. The idea our group came up with is described as creating biological walls for residential living. We chose to pursue a biological wall because we could split this project into our three different majors, Architectural, Environmental, and undecided. The architectural part would consist of the air circulation, placement of the wall and researching how biological walls increase the quality of life, while the environmental can focus on which plants to use, how to set up the integration system as well as maintaining the biological wall. This week we are focusing on researching our particular area. We split the researching up into three different parts, the ventilation and air circulation throughout the building, which plants would work best with a biological wall and easy to maintain, then how to create the irrigation system.
Deliverables by week three
Week four:
After meeting together, we found that our group was ready to create a basis design of what our biological wall wanted to look at, without some of the specifics. By next week, we will be able to add the plants we plan on integrating inside as well as where and how we want to integrate it inside a residential building. For the rest of the week we are finishing up our final researching around the area of the exact plants to use on our biological wall, and the benefits of biophilia on an everyday occasion. We have also came up with a rough design of the biological wall with the irrigation system and a description, which has been uploaded to the blog. We also plan on creating a table with the plants we chose that describe the different aspects of each plant. By drawing out this table, we are able to compare all of our plants and get a good sense on what strong parts our biological wall will have, as well as the parts we need to improve on. By finishing the tasks laid out below, our group will be ready to start putting the exact specifics on our biological wall and be able to start pricing materials out about how much it would cost to create and implement throughout a residential building.
Deliverables by week four
Week five:
This weeks main goal is to make sure all of the different aspects are all finalized by next week. In example, we are completing the list of materials with prices, needed to complete a scale model of the biological wall. Other deliverables that are being finalized during this week are the exact plants with their position on the biological wall. We are also pursuing Jacob Russell this week who helped designed the Drexel biological wall inside the Papadakis building. We are trying to answer questions that help with ideas about how to lower the amount of maintainance to as little as possible, as well as learning about the specific details to help aid in building biological walls that fit inside residential buildings. All in all, by week six we will have our final project design finalized, a list of materials and their prices which includes soil, plants, and the irrigation system. By having these particular tasks finished, our group will begin to focus on creating a scale model of the biological wall and how much it will cost.
Deliverables by week five
Week six:
When our group got together this week, we talked about the exact design we all wanted and checked to make sure all of the deliverables were done by that day. By the end of our meeting, we had a solid idea of what our biological wall was going to look like, with specific plants. Also we delegated out different jobs to make sure the final project first draft was done by week seven. We also added a list of materials tab onto our blog that helps the reader see what we have incorporated inside our biological wall and how much each piece costs. By the next time we meet, we will also have a three dimensional Creo design that represents our biological wall. By having a digital copy of our project, we will be able to send it over to different buisnesses so they can see our project and even make different changes due to the comments back from the consumers. A task that is rolling over for this week is creating a table that will describe which plants we are using and their attributes. After we have completed our tasks and deliverables, our group will have a firm grasp on how to complete our project and what steps we need to take to complete them.
Deliverables by week six
Week 7:
This week, the group finished up the first draft of the Final Project Proposal. This paper describes the existing problem and how the group plans on effecting this problem in a positive manner with their projects. Another task from last week that we started and are going to carry over onto this week is creating the materials cost for a single biological wall. By doing so, this would give us an estimate about how much money it would take to design and integrate one biological wall. This week we are also finishing the Creo design of our biological wall which can be a virtual representation of our project and its different components. Another task we are finishing up consist of the plant table. This table describes which plants we have chose to serve on our biological wall and why we chose them. The table takes into account the sunlight needed, Water intake, and temperature they each need to comfortably survive and produce their maximum amount of oxygen. Once all these tasks are completed we can pursue the idea of creating a small prototype to be able to display once the project is all finished.
Deliverables by week seven
Week 8:
After getting together, we figured out what we finished from last week deliverables and what we still needed for this weeks deliverables. The Plant table was finished as well as the Creo Design from last week. Different pictures of the 3D Creo design have been posted on the blog and the Plant table has their own different page. The ventilation system was chosen and the final design of the biological wall was completed. The outstanding deliverable that will be carried into next week is writing down and planning out the cost of one of these biological walls. We are also starting to work on the Final Project submission for this course. This paper is what has all the information rolled into 6 pages. We are also going to work on a powerpoint to give our peers a visual to look at while we are pitching our project. On this powerpoint, we will cover everything that we did inside our Final Project paper. Once we have all this work finished, we will be able to wrap our project up and be able to finish this course with an ongoing idea. We attempted to go to the machine shop at Drexel this week, but found out that we couldn't buy any materials at that specific shop. Therefore, we are going to search for materials to create our prototype from stores around us. After we have collected all the materials, we will start building the prototype for our presentation next week.
Deliverables by week eight:
Week 9:
This will be the last week before our final project will be presented. Therefore we need to finish up everything in order to conduct a professional and informational presentation. For the presentation we will have a PowerPoint which describes all the research we have done on our respected project. The PowerPoint will also consist of information surrounding the actual Biological Wall that we are designing. In example, dimensions of the design, types of plants, how it all works, and the ventilation system are all small parts of the bigger picture. Another deliverable that needs to be completed by next week is our Final Project as I stated in the blog post from the previous week. This will sum up our entire project in an eight page paper. If we are able to show up to our presentation with a working prototype, great presentation, and great attitudes then wrapping up this course will be a great experience to cap off freshman year at Drexel University. We are going to split up the Presentation by allowing the group member to speak about the corresponding information that they either researched or responsible for.
