Another successful week in class working on our final projects! This week we met with two other groups and gave and received feedback on the initial prototypes we have made. The first team we met with was the group making the people counter for businesses. Their current struggle was configuring the code to count on a three digit LCD screen because it was currently only counting for a single digit LCD screen. Unfortunately, we were not able to give them much help, but we did give them feedback on what we would like to see out of the project and what we would want if we were a small business owner deciding to buy their product. They also gave us some good feedback regarding our project. They like the open source idea which allows users to adjust the height of the legs to their own liking. They also suggested looking into the Teavana steeper which we could potentially use similar technology for our project. Another suggestion they had was to make sure we have enough material to cover the parts that will touch water so the plastic does not leak toxins into the water or the water doesn’t melt the plastic.

The next group we met with was the group making the smart plant holder. They were trying to figure out how to make the hose split into two at the top of the stand to allow both sides of the object receive equal amounts of water. We also posed the question of if plants on the lower end of the stand will receive enough nutrients since the plants at the top of the stand will soak up most of the nutrients. Their idea to combat that issue was to put plants that do not need as much nutrients on the bottom of the stand to ensure a longer survival. We also received feedback from them which included looking into making the legs into a tripod formation. We will consider this as one of our iterations of a prototype and see which one users enjoy more. Overall, the meetings were very helpful and we will take into consideration the feedback we received from both groups.

In terms of next steps, we plan to get material to line the water reservoir so the hot water doesn’t touch plastic. We will also make the slides out of this same material since the water will flow through them.