Team:__P17422______Engineer:___Erinne Munie______

Entering Phase: 4

What do I plan on doing to ensure that Team P17422 has a successful Phase 2ndreview?

  1. First I will reach out to Shwe upon her return from Singapore and discuss details of her past study. I estimate that is will occur within the next week (1 hour sometime in the next three weeks)
  2. I will begin drafting a list of pros and cons for current composting bin designs and compose of a list of good ideas to present to the team. This will commence after our problem review on September 8th. (3 hours on September 11th)
  3. I will contact a supplier of larvae eggs for future upcoming studies and see how long the shipping process will be and get a pricing estimate. This will need to be done anytime during MSD I so that we can have eggs available for MSDII when we plan to test and study our continuous system. (1 hours September 15th)
  4. I will look around the current lab and analyze the current sensors that are available for our use. This will be performed early in the second stage of this project so we can begin to plan for budgeting. (2 hours September 12th)
  5. I will draft a list of the available materials that we can use in our system design. (1 hour September 12th)

FOLLOW UP TO PHASE 2

  1. What did I actually doduring Phase 2?

Edge and Group Specific Roles

  1. Led the team as leader and organized tasks between the group. Created daily objectives and utilized the entirety of the class period to work as a group on the system design. I also set up team meetings on Monday nights to work together before class and organize the objectives for the week.
  2. I am proud to say that as a group we equally worked on the functional decomposition and generated the graph that is on EDGE. This was a true collaborating effort.
  3. I worked on the benchmarking activity for this phase by finding two composting systems specifically dedicated to black soldier flies. I then worked with Taylor on putting together a table for the benchmarking system.
  4. My special task for this phase was organizing the concept development ideas. I believed that the two most difficult parts of the project would be digestate removal and leachate filtration. Thus I decided to explore all possible concept development ideas. I worked individually and with the group to develop the ideas. I then discussed these ideas with Shwe. As we hone down a specific concept I hope to own the digestate removal process.
  5. For the feasibility section I took a special consideration in the ability to stack the components. I believed that this could be a way that the group could exceed the customer requirements. I will continue to own this aspect of the project.
  6. The next thing that we tackled together as a group was the morphological chart. We spent a LONGGGG time on this making sure to design three totally different concepts. I decided as leader that each group member should design their own version of the three concepts. My designs are featured on EDGE on the top right corner for each concept. We then worked collaboratively equally to narrow down the designs.
  7. The next thing I organized with Anton was the weekly meetings with Shwe. This proved to be extremely helpful every Thursday after class.
  8. I take responsibility for uploaded every drawing and concept picture to our teams EDGE page. I feel very confident in the EDGE software and working on our team’s page.
  9. Lastly I contributed to both the risk assessment with Anton and Ryan and the gant chart plans with Taylor.
  10. Leading up to the presentation I made sure that the team had edited past feedback on the problem definition review page, made sure that all sections were accounted for, made sure an email was sent to invite the advisors, and then organized the structure of the presentation.

Comments on what I had planned to do

  1. First I will reach out to Shwe upon her return from Singapore and discuss details of her past study. I estimate that is will occur within the next week (1 hour sometime in the next three weeks)*We successfully achieved this goal
  2. I will begin drafting a list of pros and cons for current composting bin designs and compose of a list of good ideas to present to the team. This will commence after our problem review on September 8th. (3 hours on September 11th)*I performed this activity in a different manner by continuing with benchmarking activities. I realized that the simple Protopod would not stand as a sufficient datum.
  3. I will contact a supplier of larvae eggs for future upcoming studies and see how long the shipping process will be and get a pricing estimate. This will need to be done anytime during MSD I so that we can have eggs available for MSDII when we plan to test and study our continuous system. (1 hours September 15th)*Successfully talked to Sarah and found out on 10/3 that there is a budget for egg purchasing
  4. I will look around the current lab and analyze the current sensors that are available for our use. This will be performed early in the second stage of this project so we can begin to plan for budgeting. (2 hours September 12th)*As I learned more about the project I realized that the shed will have the controls we need to keep the environment stable in our system. Later I learned that if the shed is not available we will be doing the procedure in the lab thus we can use the current systems provided.
  5. I will draft a list of the available materials that we can use in our system design. (1 hour September 12th)
  6. A printed 3D matrix could be used for the egg laying sight.
  7. 80/20 material for the holder of the system
  8. Creform for the holder of the system
  9. Potential plastics to use- PET, HDPE, PVC, LDPE, PP, PS (all will be good options as the larvae do not seem to be very particular)
  1. What did I learn during Phase 2nd?

Overall I learned that digestate removal will be the hardest component of this project. After brainstorming with the group and multiple concept development ideas it is still evident that we do not have the perfect solution. The difficultly is due to not knowing how fast this digestate will accumulate, and not knowing whether the larvae will leave this area to feed on the fresh food. As a group we are assuming and hoping that the larvae leave the digestate. The second hardest problem will be leachate removal. This is a thick viscous fluid and it will be a challenge to filter this liquid and avoid clogging any filters.

What do I plan on doing to ensure that Team P17422 has a successful Phase 3rdreview?

  1. Start experiments to learn how fast the larvae consume food waste. Develop a plan to test the larvae. An idea is 3 replications with a certain number of large and measured food additions. Brian Thorn and Sarah have ordered us larvae so I believe these tests could start next week. So a test plan should be drafted this week and we should work as a group to make sure it is a feasible plan. (*this should start on Thursday 10/6/16 and last until the next design review on 11/1)
  2. Guide the team to hone down on two specific design systems. (*Thursday 10/6 through 11/1)
  3. My personal goal is to continue to work on the concept development ideas for digestate and leachate removal. This will be through weekly sketches and then bring my sketches to class to discuss with the team (*2 hours weekly)
  4. Continue to lead meetings with Shwe on Thursdays to discuss design concepts and study outcomes (*1 hour every Thursday)
  5. Follow up on a phase two plan and determine the feasibility of running experiments indoors. (*3hrs in the Lab any time before 11/1)

FOLLOW UP TO PHASE 3

What did I actually do during Phase 3?

1.Fed larvae in larvae handling study. I worked with my team on learning the operations necessary for feeding and measuring larvae throughout their life cycle. I familiarized myself with the lab and the equipment.

2.I worked with the group on simplifying the larvae testing procedures. We eliminated unneeded steps and added additional steps that would be beneficial for analysis. (This was the day we drafted a test plan on the whiteboard)

3.Myself, Ryan, and Taylor worked on cutting the support structures for the hot box in the Brinkman Lab. Myself and Ryan then worked for 5 hours on a Friday to build the Hot box.

4.I also went with the team to home depot and purchased the final materials needed for the roof of the hot box.

5.Personally I drafted the different types of container systems for the larvae study.

6.I continuously uploaded photos and information onto EDGE, including flow charts, drafts, and images of the hot box. I am fully responsible for the prototyping sections on edge as well as the Test Plans on EDGE.

7.My biggest accomplishment this phase was drafting the Digestate Test Plan that will be performed for next phase. I drafted the entire test plan and created all the necessary tables that will be used to record data. This test plan was my main challenge during this phase and I am very happy with the results.

What did I plan to do during Phase 3?

  1. Start experiments to learn how fast the larvae consume food waste. Develop a plan to test the larvae. An idea is 3 replications with a certain number of large and measured food additions. Brian Thorn and Sarah have ordered us larvae so I believe these tests could start next week. So a test plan should be drafted this week and we should work as a group to make sure it is a feasible plan. (*this should start on Thursday 10/6/16 and last until the next design review on 11/1)*I did develop the test plan that will be used to perform this test. I made sure that the test plan will be feasible and will have coverage of all of the major engineering concerns. The test plan did not start because we realized we would need to similuate ideal conditions indoors before starting the experiment which would require a hot box.
  2. Guide the team to hone down on two specific design systems. (*Thursday 10/6 through 11/1)*This was not performed during the phase. We decided we needed to test the feasibility of our top engineering concerns before we develop a system that is not feasible. Thus are time and effort went into making a plan for testing not final system prototyping.
  3. My personal goal is to continue to work on the concept development ideas for digestate and leachate removal. This will be through weekly sketches and then bring my sketches to class to discuss with the team (*2 hours weekly)*This was not accomplished because we refocused our efforts on designing systems for the feasibility testing. I did design drawings for the containers that would house the larvae and food.
  4. Continue to lead meetings with Shwe on Thursdays to discuss design concepts and study outcomes * This goal was ACCOMPLISHED
  5. Follow up on a phase two plan and determine the feasibility of running experiments indoors. (*3hrs in the Lab any time before 11/1)*ACCOMPLISHED, I created the ultimate feasibility test plan and we built an environment for indoor studies.

What did I learn?

I learned that sometimes it is vital to ensure that we have a feasible plan before we start to do heavy design work. We realized that we needed to stop design work and focus of the feasibility of digestate removal and leachate filtration. Once this feasibility study is complete then we can refocus on the design. 

What do I plan to do to ensure that Team P17422 has a successful Phase 4th review?

  1. Follow the test plan schedule accordingly to ensure that all the data is accurately collected for the study. (twice a week I will be scheduled for about 2 hours of work)
  2. Continuously collect and interpret data as well as update study plan throughout the study. (continuously for the next three weeks)
  3. Read up on literature in the Dropbox to prepare for the next design phase. (read up to three articles including patents).
  4. Develop a procedure and detailed plan for an additional engineering requirement (5 hours at the end of the digestate study).
  5. Continue to meet with Shwe on a weekly basis. (1 hour weekly)