Week 6: Exciting / Interesting Findings

By making the alpha prototype this past week, one of the most interesting findings that our team discovered was the placement of every mechanic within our product, and just how much where each component is placed can affect the overall efficiency and design of the phone case. Previously, we had talked about getting it as compact as possible—even the possibility of making it an attachment rather than an entire phone case. However, after various design choices, we ultimately decided that making an entire case actually wouldn't be as bad as we thought. Most of all, we really learned this week how difficult it is to mesh aesthetic design with mechanical design. Furthermore, we discovered that if we assume a 20% motor efficiency, which is not very good, we can still achieve a certain level of feasibility. We calculated that although it takes about 5 hours of pulling to get a full charge on a smartphone battery, about 30 seconds of pulling will get a minute of talk time. Overall, although we hope to increase the efficiency, the results we currently have are not terrible.