We're finally done with gate review 1! It was a lot of work because we ended up redefining our problem statement at the last minute, and were missing two teammates during the time that we did the bulk of the work. But in the end, I'm satisfied with the way that the report and presentation turned out.
We have now defined our problem as the need for people to charge their mobile devices at music festivals without having to plug into an outlet. We are thinking to solve this with an energy generation device that captures motion. This idea was refined from targeting people who walk in general, because there is a lot more motion associated with dancing at music festivals, and because there is a demonstrated need for a charging solution in this setting.
From our QFD, we found that this device needs to be roughly the size of an iPhone (or smaller), should cost between $30 and $50 and should output a full battery charge from one day of energy collection. We're excited to move into the design phase next week, and figure out how exactly we intend to do this. We have been throwing around the idea of a simple electro-magnetic generator in a creative shape, and may still consider using elastomeric capacitors in some way (though that will be very technically difficult.
Throughout writing the report, we were always very eager to come up with ideas for designs. Not that the gate review is done, we are more than ready to seriously tackle the problem of design!
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