K'NEX and Kars

 K'NEX and Kars

June 4th STEM




Today, the STEM had an objective to create a transportation device using the K'NEX given to carry an object from point A to point B.


To properly create such a transportation device, the engineering design process had to be used to ensure and maintain orderly conduct and correct planning.

The eight steps of the engineering design process are:

1. Identify a need
2. Conduct Research
3. Brainstorm Solutions
4. Select a Solution
5. Build a Prototype
6. Test and Evaluate
7. Redesign to Improve
8. Communicate Your Results




My group adhered to these simple steps and decided to use a rubber band-based windable 4-wheeler to carry smaller objects from point A to point B. For the design process, we looked through different amounts of wheels and different designs such as a vertical or horizontal-based vehicle. Our largest constraint was time, but planning out the brainstorming process helped a lot. 




Practicing the engineering design process helped me learn many different things. I discovered that if my transportation device didn't work in the first time, the engineering design process was very well designed to incorporate mistakes. A prototype is obviously not a final product, so when my team ran into mistakes, we used the process to retrace our steps and stick to the initial plan. If I did further development, I would brainstorm more and think more about possible shortcomings of the prototype so that I didn't have to loop the process so many times. 


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