Description
For this project we had to pick a work problem and find a way that we could solve it. For our group we chose traffic as our project.
We started the project by brainstorming a bunch of ideas on how we could solve the problem. We came up with about 40 ideas and eliminated all the ideas that wouldn't work practically and narrowed it down to about 4 or 5 ideas. We then repeated this process until we were left with only 2 ideas. We then took those two ideas through a process of researching and modeling to see which was the best idea. In the end we decided on the idea of lights on the side of the road to stop the problem of phantom traffic.
About Phantom Crashes...
Have you ever been stuck in traffic and then suddenly the traffic clears up. There is no crash, no cops, and no tow truck. That is called Phantom Traffic. It is when a crash has happened and cleared but the back up remains on the road. A way to prevent this is to have all the cars go forward at once.
The 2 ideas that we had were lights on the side of the road that told people when to go when the crash had been cleared. The second idea was a drone that had a light on it and would tell people when to go. We chose the first one because it was more practical and cost effective.
This is the purpose of our design. It will be explained more in the slide show for our project.
We started the project by brainstorming a bunch of ideas on how we could solve the problem. We came up with about 40 ideas and eliminated all the ideas that wouldn't work practically and narrowed it down to about 4 or 5 ideas. We then repeated this process until we were left with only 2 ideas. We then took those two ideas through a process of researching and modeling to see which was the best idea. In the end we decided on the idea of lights on the side of the road to stop the problem of phantom traffic.
About Phantom Crashes...
Have you ever been stuck in traffic and then suddenly the traffic clears up. There is no crash, no cops, and no tow truck. That is called Phantom Traffic. It is when a crash has happened and cleared but the back up remains on the road. A way to prevent this is to have all the cars go forward at once.
The 2 ideas that we had were lights on the side of the road that told people when to go when the crash had been cleared. The second idea was a drone that had a light on it and would tell people when to go. We chose the first one because it was more practical and cost effective.
This is the purpose of our design. It will be explained more in the slide show for our project.
Reflection
In this project there many thing that we did well in and ways we could have improved. A good thing we did was that we came up with a lot of brainstorming ideas so that we had a lot to work with when we started. This helped up because it gave us a very broad spectrum to work with on deciding what solution to use.
One way we could have done better would have been our pricing. The reason our pricing was so bad was that is was very low. The reason it was low was because it did not include the price of labor and wiring up all the signs. This would lead to a problem because instead of being $1800 per mile, I could end up being $100,000 a mile or more.
One way I could improve would be my leadership role. In this project I stepped back and let the others in my group take it by the reigns. I still contributed to the group but I did less so than in other projects in the past.
One way we could have done better would have been our pricing. The reason our pricing was so bad was that is was very low. The reason it was low was because it did not include the price of labor and wiring up all the signs. This would lead to a problem because instead of being $1800 per mile, I could end up being $100,000 a mile or more.
One way I could improve would be my leadership role. In this project I stepped back and let the others in my group take it by the reigns. I still contributed to the group but I did less so than in other projects in the past.