Puzzle Design Challenge
Introduction/Purpose
Engineers often have little more to start a project on than an idea, or guidelines and materials on which to work with. In this project, you will take the materials you have and combine them to make combinations challenging to the average passerby.
Engineers also need to be able to effectively communicate their ideas to others around them. An engineer must have sketching skills in order to describe their ideas in a visual sense so it may be understood better than it would be otherwise verbally. These skills are quintessential when outlining ideas or designs to other people.
This project will help you to develop your sketching abilities and your capability to develop a useful and challenging object out of seemingly insignificant things.
Design Brief
Client Fine Office Furniture, Inc.
Target Consumer Ages: High school aged
Designer Osric Nagle (Ostrich Bagel & Co.)
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 sizeable 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
1. The puzzle must be fabricated from 27 – ¾″ hardwood cubes.
2. The puzzle system must contain exactly five puzzle parts.
3. Each individual puzzle part must consist of at least four, but no more than six hardwood cubes that are permanently attached to each other.
4. No two puzzle parts can be the same.
5. The five puzzle parts must assemble to form a 2 ¼″ cube.
6. Some puzzle parts should interlock.
7. The puzzle should require high school students an average of (hasn't declared yet) minutes/seconds to solve. (Fill in your target solution time.)
Submittal
View the Portfolio presentation. Create a project portfolio to include the following:
· Design Process Description. Summarize your work during each step of the design process. Include documentation (written work, sketches, CAD drawings, images, etc.) to support your discussion. Your documentation must include the following information located in the appropriate Design Process step:
o Title page
o Brief autobiography and your picture
o Puzzle Design Challenge Brief
o Brainstorming Possible Part Combinations (Activity 4.1a Puzzle Part Combinations)
o Isometric sketches of two possible complete Puzzle Cube designs
o Justification of your chosen Puzzle Cube design solution
o Multi-view sketch, fully dimensioned of each of the five puzzle parts in your chosen design (Activity 4.1b Graphical Modeling)
o CAD drawing(s) displaying a fully dimensioned multi-view of each puzzle part and two different isometric views of the assembled puzzle.
o Drawing review comments from a classmate.
o Image(s) of your building process and puzzle prototype.
o Physical model of your puzzle.
o Statistics related to the solution time of your puzzle as required above.
o A written summary of your puzzle test results and a discussion of the validity of your design. Does your design meet the design criteria? Does your design “provide an appropriate degree of challenge to high school students” (as stated in the design statement)?
A discussion of possible changes to your puzzle cube that would improve the design.
Engineers often have little more to start a project on than an idea, or guidelines and materials on which to work with. In this project, you will take the materials you have and combine them to make combinations challenging to the average passerby.
Engineers also need to be able to effectively communicate their ideas to others around them. An engineer must have sketching skills in order to describe their ideas in a visual sense so it may be understood better than it would be otherwise verbally. These skills are quintessential when outlining ideas or designs to other people.
This project will help you to develop your sketching abilities and your capability to develop a useful and challenging object out of seemingly insignificant things.
Design Brief
Client Fine Office Furniture, Inc.
Target Consumer Ages: High school aged
Designer Osric Nagle (Ostrich Bagel & Co.)
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 sizeable 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
1. The puzzle must be fabricated from 27 – ¾″ hardwood cubes.
2. The puzzle system must contain exactly five puzzle parts.
3. Each individual puzzle part must consist of at least four, but no more than six hardwood cubes that are permanently attached to each other.
4. No two puzzle parts can be the same.
5. The five puzzle parts must assemble to form a 2 ¼″ cube.
6. Some puzzle parts should interlock.
7. The puzzle should require high school students an average of (hasn't declared yet) minutes/seconds to solve. (Fill in your target solution time.)
Submittal
View the Portfolio presentation. Create a project portfolio to include the following:
· Design Process Description. Summarize your work during each step of the design process. Include documentation (written work, sketches, CAD drawings, images, etc.) to support your discussion. Your documentation must include the following information located in the appropriate Design Process step:
o Title page
o Brief autobiography and your picture
o Puzzle Design Challenge Brief
o Brainstorming Possible Part Combinations (Activity 4.1a Puzzle Part Combinations)
o Isometric sketches of two possible complete Puzzle Cube designs
o Justification of your chosen Puzzle Cube design solution
o Multi-view sketch, fully dimensioned of each of the five puzzle parts in your chosen design (Activity 4.1b Graphical Modeling)
o CAD drawing(s) displaying a fully dimensioned multi-view of each puzzle part and two different isometric views of the assembled puzzle.
o Drawing review comments from a classmate.
o Image(s) of your building process and puzzle prototype.
o Physical model of your puzzle.
o Statistics related to the solution time of your puzzle as required above.
o A written summary of your puzzle test results and a discussion of the validity of your design. Does your design meet the design criteria? Does your design “provide an appropriate degree of challenge to high school students” (as stated in the design statement)?
A discussion of possible changes to your puzzle cube that would improve the design.