With a week to go before our presentation of our product, our class / team has been quite busy in the past week. Firstly, my team BCC creations have created a working prototype of our 3D printed security system. In terms of basic functionality our prototype works, and is being tested by our selves and friends of ours that can use it in their apartments on campus.

Addittionally in class we were able to get and give feedback on our existing prototypes. I enjoyed giving feedback to other teams prototypes as it was nice to hear other ideas that teams had. One group I gave feedback to was developing a wrist band that can detect when you are dehydrated. I thought this was a great idea, and I gave my perspective on how they can improve based on my experience playing sports and with recreation in general.

Our team also received extremely valuable feedback from the groups in our class. One group  had us think about the possibility of cats or pets  in an apartment, and if that would trigger our security system. Our security system uses an ultra motion sensor, which unless adjusted or installed properly would be triggered by a pet walking by.  Obviously if this was the case the device could falsely measure this movement as an intruder.  Because of this we have started thinking about creating instructions on exactly where users should install there device to monitor a door or window being broken into. Since in most cases we would not be able to install the product in a users home these instructions would be useful in making sure the security system functions properly. In our case the device should be installed high above or to the side of a door so that it is not triggered by other things around it outside of a door opening.

Secondly, our team was also given a suggestion that it may be easy for users to forget to make sure the security device is powered on. For example when a user leaves their home for an extended vacation or day or weekend, walking out of the home they could easily forget to set the alarm (power it on). This easy user error is something we are thinking about how to make our device easier to work around the users life style as opposed to the user working around the device. We have already programmed a message to alert the user when the device is on, and are considering other ways to make it easier to use the device,

Receiving Feedback

The feedback allowed our group to think about our product from a different perspective, and to also consider situations that we had not though of when we originally came up with the idea. The feedback helped us think of our device in a much more user friendly way. As our entire class starts to finalize our products, I can certainly say that the feedback and testing phase of the project has been the most useful in how informative it has been