Hello! Believe it or not, its the penultimate week. Sadly, that also means that this blog is the penultimate one… But let’s set our nostalgia aside, and jump into what happened this week. Since we are heading towards the end of the program, we knew we had to make lots of progress this week, and in my opinion, I think we did!
At the beginning of this week, we were finally able to finish the “sensors” part of our project. We wrapped up our measuring of syringes (for now at least…) and were able to finalize the interpolation and linear regression models. With these done, we were able to get an inner diameter from the sensors. Half way there!
With that under our belt, we moved on to the “lines” portion. As the name suggests, we added lines to the Kasupe, one red and one yellow, out of tape. It doesn’t seem like much to most, but those lines are a big part of our solution, and we’re fine with that! I think once we put the tape on the Kasupe was when we really realized how different our project was from the others. Other projects have physical models or devices they can show, but we can’t, which can be hard at times to explain and show progress. But with the lines added on, at least we said we had something physical!
Our lines!
After we had the lines on the Kasupe, we had to do some testing to see how accurately people can read the corresponding volumes. How do we do that? By asking people, even complete strangers, to take a three to five minute “Lines Test.” In addition to asking our friends at the OEDK, we went to the student center with a bag of Hershey Kisses, a laptop, the Kasupe, a sign, and a whole lot of patience. We asked people we knew and those we didn’t to complete the test and were finally able to get up to a sample size of thirty participants. The many awkward interactions that went into the process were well worth the effort, since the tests were very helpful in assessing our lines!
The Lines Test setup
The sign we used, taped into my notebook for the nostalgia
Sensors were done, lines were done… sounds like it’s time to combine the inner diameters from both! We were very excited to start the “meta-analysis” portion of our project. But then we hit a roadblock: circular reasoning. If we use data to create a process, and then use that process to see how well the process worked… we will always be right. Doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world, but it definitely would mess up our process. Uh oh is right.
Circular logic, at its finest
So what are we going to do now? Stop? Scream? Maybe even cry? No, no, no… we’re engineers after all! We take MORE data! And that’s where we are now; we are waiting for more syringes to take more measurements to begin testing of our process. While it low-key pains me to get the calipers out again and begin taking more measurements, I know its well worth it. That will let us to wrap up our project, and see how well we’ve done!
Well, I think that’s it for the penultimate week. Remember, don’t get too nostalgic. There’s still a lot of work to be done!