puzzle design challenge
This activity is designed to help us as developing engineers learn how to problem solve and develop and independent project quickly and efficiently. We are making a 3x3x3 puzzle cube to be designed and used in class.
Design brief
Puzzle Design Challenge Brief
Client Fine Office Furniture, Inc.
Target Consumer Ages: High school aged
Designer Patrick Bell
Problem Statement
A local office furniture manufacturing company throws away tens of thousands of scrap ¾” hardwood cubes that result from its furniture construction processes. The material is expensive, and the scrap represents a sizable loss of profit.
Design Statement
Fine Office Furniture, Inc. would like to return value to its waste product by using it as the raw material for desktop novelty items that will be sold on the showroom floor. Design, build, test, document, and present a three-dimensional puzzle system that is made from the scrap hardwood cubes. The puzzle system must provide an appropriate degree of challenge to high school students.
Criteria
Client Fine Office Furniture, Inc.
Target Consumer Ages: High school aged
Designer Patrick Bell
Problem Statement
A local office furniture manufacturing company throws away tens of thousands of scrap ¾” hardwood cubes that result from its furniture construction processes. The material is expensive, and the scrap represents a sizable loss of profit.
Design Statement
Fine Office Furniture, Inc. would like to return value to its waste product by using it as the raw material for desktop novelty items that will be sold on the showroom floor. Design, build, test, document, and present a three-dimensional puzzle system that is made from the scrap hardwood cubes. The puzzle system must provide an appropriate degree of challenge to high school students.
Criteria
- The puzzle must be fabricated from 27 – ¾″ hardwood cubes.
- The puzzle system must contain exactly five puzzle parts.
- Each individual puzzle part must consist of at least four, but no more than six hardwood cubes that are permanently attached to each other.
- No two puzzle parts can be the same.
- The five puzzle parts must assemble to form a 2 ¼″ cube.
- Some puzzle parts should interlock.
- The puzzle should require high school students an average of 7 minutes/seconds to solve.
Conclusion
1. Why is it important to model an idea before making a final prototype?
So you will have a very detailed representation of your final prototype, and you can easily model and detail it. This prior documentation should allow you to easily fly through the development process.
2. Which assembly constraint(s) did you use to constrain the parts of the puzzle to the assembly such that it did not move? Describe each of the constraint types used and explain the degrees of freedom that are removed when each is applied between two parts. You may wish to create a sketch to help explain your description.
We used "Mate" and "Flush" constraints in our Inventory assembly file. The "Mate" constrain tool connects two surfaces to each other, so they will share the same axis. The "Flush" constrain tool fuses two edges together into a static position. In a "Mate" constraint, the tool can still rotate around while still touching the constraining part. In a "Flush", the constrained part can still move back and force.
3. Based on your experiences during the completion of the Puzzle Design Challenge, what is meant when someone says, “I used a design process to solve the problem at hand”? Explain your answer using the work that you completed for this project.
It means they carefully analyzed the problem using a series of steps in order to narrow down the most efficient and proper solution. In our project, for example, we used a combination of guessing and testing to analyze how many combinations we could make using the constraints given (5 pieces with a maximum of 6 blocks per piece, with a total of 27 blocks in a 3x3 arrangement.)
4. How does the gender of the puzzle solver affect solution time? Be specific and provide evidence to support your answer.
Due to the control groups being of different sizes, the results may not be completely accurate. The average female solve time was 2:07, whereas the average male time was 2:08. This shows there wasn't a huge influence on gender in these trials.
5. How does the age of the puzzle solver affect solution time?
There was no real trend in age, the times were sporadic and very unaffected by the users age. However, in a larger testing groups, much younger testers would be expected to have longer times, whereas adult testers would have less time used.
a. Make a specific statement related to the rate of increase or decrease of solution time with respect to age. Provide evidence that supports your statement.
There wasn't a visible trend, as the age range was a mere 5 years. Unfortunately, my testers didn't vary in age that much, and consisted of all High School students. However, this makes it a very accurate test pool due to the challenge description.
b. Write an equation using function notation that represents puzzle solution time in terms of age. Be sure to define your variables and identify units.
c. Predict the solution time on the first attempt of a child who is 3 years of age. Show your work.
d. Predict the solution time on the first attempt of a person who is 95 years of age. Show your work.
e. Do these predictions make sense? Why or why not?
f. What is a realistic domain for the function?
g. Collect additional data to verify your mathematical model.
1. Why is it important to model an idea before making a final prototype?
So you will have a very detailed representation of your final prototype, and you can easily model and detail it. This prior documentation should allow you to easily fly through the development process.
2. Which assembly constraint(s) did you use to constrain the parts of the puzzle to the assembly such that it did not move? Describe each of the constraint types used and explain the degrees of freedom that are removed when each is applied between two parts. You may wish to create a sketch to help explain your description.
We used "Mate" and "Flush" constraints in our Inventory assembly file. The "Mate" constrain tool connects two surfaces to each other, so they will share the same axis. The "Flush" constrain tool fuses two edges together into a static position. In a "Mate" constraint, the tool can still rotate around while still touching the constraining part. In a "Flush", the constrained part can still move back and force.
3. Based on your experiences during the completion of the Puzzle Design Challenge, what is meant when someone says, “I used a design process to solve the problem at hand”? Explain your answer using the work that you completed for this project.
It means they carefully analyzed the problem using a series of steps in order to narrow down the most efficient and proper solution. In our project, for example, we used a combination of guessing and testing to analyze how many combinations we could make using the constraints given (5 pieces with a maximum of 6 blocks per piece, with a total of 27 blocks in a 3x3 arrangement.)
4. How does the gender of the puzzle solver affect solution time? Be specific and provide evidence to support your answer.
Due to the control groups being of different sizes, the results may not be completely accurate. The average female solve time was 2:07, whereas the average male time was 2:08. This shows there wasn't a huge influence on gender in these trials.
5. How does the age of the puzzle solver affect solution time?
There was no real trend in age, the times were sporadic and very unaffected by the users age. However, in a larger testing groups, much younger testers would be expected to have longer times, whereas adult testers would have less time used.
a. Make a specific statement related to the rate of increase or decrease of solution time with respect to age. Provide evidence that supports your statement.
There wasn't a visible trend, as the age range was a mere 5 years. Unfortunately, my testers didn't vary in age that much, and consisted of all High School students. However, this makes it a very accurate test pool due to the challenge description.
b. Write an equation using function notation that represents puzzle solution time in terms of age. Be sure to define your variables and identify units.
c. Predict the solution time on the first attempt of a child who is 3 years of age. Show your work.
d. Predict the solution time on the first attempt of a person who is 95 years of age. Show your work.
e. Do these predictions make sense? Why or why not?
f. What is a realistic domain for the function?
g. Collect additional data to verify your mathematical model.