In my class, design and engineering, we have worked on using empathy to help our designing process. This project was about making gardening accessible for the elderly. We were being asked to make tools people could use even if they don't have the same abilities as everyone. The user in mind is people who have physical disabilities, such as the elderly or people who like unique tools. This relates to empathy because we had to take the position of the people we are making these tools for. Comfort is important, especially if you're using the tool for a decent amount of time. Reliability is key a lot of the competition will break under stress, not our tool, and availability is necessary. With those factors in mind, we went to Home Depot to try out our tool in question to find the issues with the standard product. our tool makes digging more accessible to people who are less able-bodied than most. We had a representative show us around and let us use our tools to see how exactly they work with us and what challenges others might face with them. Our tool is a mini bucket wheel excavator on a bipod, that digs up the soil with spinning blades. It's powered by an electric, rechargeable battery motor. We make sure all of these are accessible with our tool. We also interviewed elderly gardeners about their experiences with gardening. one important quote I got from my interview, "Reaching the ground is more difficult than actually planting" was very influential in my design process. These are factors the competition fails to achieve.
image of storyboard
image of tool prototype with labels to components
volume and surface area for perspective of the spinning blades:
dimensions for the blades:
B = 0.5 inches
H = 1.5 inches
W = 1/16
V: 1.5 • 0.5 • 0.5 * 1/16 = 0.0234375 in^3
½(1.5 × 0.5) × 2 = 2.375
1.5 x 1/16 = 0.09375
0.5 × 1/16 = 0.03125
H × 1/16 = 0.0988211769
sum of = 2.5988211769 in^2 = surface area
Shovels haven't changed in the past 100 years, they're reliable and do their job well. It scoops up material and uses leverage to move things. Our design has a handle, two legs, rotary blades, a motor, a battery, and a replaceable head. Our concept uses multiple simple machines and is self-reliant. My tool includes a few of wedges in the form of spinning blades, and perhaps an inclined plane, which the axis of the stem rests on, and it will be a kind of machine that does a lot of the work for you. the design process was long with much revising, and we have landed on our final design. I've learned that we can make tools that are accessible to everyone. It's easy and quite fun. I found making a tool easy because I could take the point of view someone less able-bodied might have as I have back problems. I thought actually drawing out my design was the most challenging as my artistic skills aren't amazing. It was hard to keep up with, I kind of didn't end up overcoming that though. If I could change something id fix my design to be maximumly efficient in both physical and ethical ways.
Citations:
NO "Original Design" 10/7/22
NO "Story Board" 10/7/22
NO "Blade Drawing" 10/7/22
NO "Moded" 10/7/22
