Nearing the End!

Final Project Ideas

As the title suggests, we will move on to our final project...conducting an engineering analysis on the tools to extricate the human brain and wire it to a artificial intelligence capable of performing brain messages and stimulating critical areas for efficiency in the thought process. Happy April Fools!

What is true is that we are near the end of the semester, and will be starting our final projects soon. Our goal is to create a beneficial Feedback & Control mechanism for a classroom of young children between the ages of 3 and 5. We are looking to integrate these mechanisms into a real classroom setting after they are finished.

This post will highlight some of the ideas that I have come up with after observing a classroom of young children. I am not sure yet how the mechanism will work, nor how I will be able to integrate Feedback and Control, but these are some of the places I would like to help improve.

1. Although the doors are specifically designed so that they take into account the children's heights, they have locks that children find hard to unlock after they enter. They want privacy when they are in the stalls, and would try to lock the door, but find it difficult to unlock it after, which gets them stuck in the bathroom stall. The lock is controlled by a slider that is pushed into a slot, but they aren't perfect in sliding back smoothly out.
2. The issue at the water faucets seemed to present a way to incorporate feedback and control. Children often use the water faucets to wash their hands after activities such as playing with sand or soapy water, and would leave the water faucets running for too long as they wash their hands. After our class observed the classroom, I liked Xi Xi's idea of having a electronic small flower that would slowly wilt if the children left the faucet running for too long or if they turned it on for too long. We also thought of ways to incorporate a sound mechanism that would alert the children if they were being too loud, but we would need to think about what sound wouldn't scare the children, yet get them to pay attention. 
3. Another issue that the teacher pointed out was that children were fidgety when sitting in their assigned cushion space during group time. It is difficult to have them stay on their cushions for long, and teachers would have to constantly remind the children to please sit back in their seats. I think it would be a challenge to incorporate a feedback & control mechanism that would allow them to stay content seated on their small cushions, but I think that a point brought up would be useful. One of the teachers mentioned that it was useful to have visual clues for the children when we are thinking of mechanisms to create, because they are able to relate to their surroundings directly. This will be helpful as we think of possible project ideas. 

At the moment, I do not have any ideas on how to execute a feedback & control mechanism that would benefit a child's classroom setting. I do have an idea of what stations/places I would like to improve, and will continue to think of possible ideas. Until I finalize on a final project idea, it is up in the air--the project might even have a completely different purpose than these above that I've originally thought of!