Her concept modeling is making look-like model of replacing gear of the door. Even though, it is just looks-like model, not works like model, I can see how it would operate in the real one. She mentioned that she will decide whether adding more challenge or not. I think once she starts making real one, it would be hard to change the level of difficulty in the middle of constructing. She should find out proper level of challenging of replacing gear first.

return to top of page

The replacing gear looks-like model clearly conveys the visual aspect of the concept and shows the linkage among interrelated parts. It is very thoughtful to state your other alternatives (e.g. sliding door) as opposed to your constructed model and to justify your reasons for choosing your final model. The color of the door model together with the lego-gear assembly makes the artifact realistic. The assignment of color coding for different model components, ease the process of following your model and presents how system components are interacting with each other; this illustrates understanding user s state of mind and removes ambiguity in terms of easily allocating a component that is redundant or doesn t contribute in the overall functionality of the model. Taking a close still picture gives a nice scaling factor as if this door is constructed in full scale. From my previous comments on your team concept sketches, and by comparing them to what you have generated as a physical mode, I still don t see a refinement in terms of providing some sort of mechanism that would prevent any damages to the gear teeth as they are dropped once the team members solve the challenge; in my previous comments, I suggested using magnet mechanism, but since you decided to go ahead with using gears in this artifact model, I would recommend to have a foam layer on the floor just to absorb any gears impact when they hit the floor and prevent any gear teeth damages; you may also want to consider using gears made of high strength/toughness material that would sustain impact (but these are costly); Not refining your concept model at this stage by incorporating this issue will cause 5 Witts a lot of money in terms of replacement and maintenance, and would also lead to malfunction of the interactive game due to the imperfection in gear teeth, and eventually the handle won t turn properly and the entire interactive challenge is put on hold. To move this artifact forward in the project development phase, I would suggest considering criti cal issues such as human factor in terms of the resistance that a variety of group (age and gender) would experience in turning these gears, and the mechanism of how these gears are rotating in relation to opening the door.

return to top of page

The purpose of this sketch model is clear, but I would have been interested to see some variations of a gear/door the model to see how it was used for aesthetic or functional testing. The challenge itself in interesting and feasible, but not particularly original, so I would suggest moving forward with something which has not been done yet instead. The 'works like' lego model was an interesting aside, and perhaps could have been pushed further. Could you have tested how hard the challenge would be with gears with pegs and as many/more holes than there are gears? This type of user testing would be useful and interesting, and would add to the analysis of this challenge from a new perspective. The website is clear, but larger images to see details of the 'looks like' model might have made things more clear. Legends for the images would also be helpful. Overall, totally satisfying.

return to top of page