The Importance of Redesign
Our challenge was to redesign a bookcase with several flaws. Students were asked to examine the original prototype and discuss possible improvements to correct flaws. Students pointed out that the original bookcase didn’t safely hold the maximum amount of books, nor were these cases portable. Then, students had a chance to rebuild their bookcases to address pre-existing design flaws; some improvements made to designs were the addition of wheels and the designing of deeper shelves to hold books. Then, students tested out their new bookcase designs to see how they stacked up against designs made by other groups.
Aside from redesigning bookcases, we learned about how important it is for engineers to redesign things that have already been built. For example, engineers that have come up with their own prototypes (original designs) still have to test it and will probably have to redesign it many times before they are satisfied with their creation.
It was really interesting to see what other teams built; we had the same task, but we had different ways of solving the problem. That was one of the best parts!
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