In an engineering design course called praxis, I was given the chance to come up with a solution to an everyay annoyance. Our group was tasked with reducing ring misalignment in bindders. I was able to assist my group in coming up with divergent solutions to the problem, as well as aid in selecting an approach using what our group collectively perceived as important.

Figure #1 shows a few of the divergent solutions in which I came up with. Accumulated with my group's solutions, we converged to one approach to the solution based on what we felt was important, then iterated to improve the design chosen. This was my first opportunity to complete a full cycle of my design process. The finalized solution was a button along the spine of the binder that made it much easier to open, which reduces misalignment from opening the binder improperly, and is shown in the kickstarter video in Figure #2.

 

 

Following this, we then presented our solution to a set of stakeholders with our finalized design. This demonstrates my experience with the refining the design, as we and the stakeholders were able to fully assess and look for ways to perfect the design.

Figuer #2 also shows the kickstarter video that I made for communicating this idea, and can be considered as part of the refinement stage of my design process.