This week the pressure was on to create a polished, thought-through project to present to the powerhouse. Instead of scrapping the old idea for something new we forced ourselves to examine what we had inherited and refine it. It seems like refining an idea would be a lot easier than coming up with something new but this was honestly the most challenging task. One of the biggest problems with the project was that it looked really really ugly. We all wanted to change the design but struggled to integrate visual spectacle with a not so glamourous passive solar water heater. Our group actually fought a lot about it and made little progress. Every new design idea seemed like an add on and no one was satisfied. On top of this the previous group handed us fried servos so we had to use two of the baby ones, which can't move much. Another problem was using copper tubing. We were well aware that copper was like gold to thieves and we wanted to add a level of security to our product. We added aluminum flaps that covered the device at night and then are used as reflective panels during the day. All in all we made something that was highly functional but not spectacular and not much to differentiate it from existing products. I was personally disappointed in myself for not being able to meet the design challenge.
I loved going to see the actual powerhouse. It put everything in perspective and we learned a lot about the client and the neighborhood. I was surprised to learn it was a predominantly Bangledesh immigrant neighborhood. I wish we had started the semester by going to talking to the people at the powerhouse and listening to their wants and concerns. I think we all would have had an easier time creating products that they actually needed and something that fit the community. Now I feel like we're starting from square one again with all this new information.
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