Glacion Cooling Backpack
Skills Used
Project Management, Design, Communication, Project scheduling, SolidWorks, Time Management, Manufacturing, Product Development, Team Management, Python, Arduino, Product Development, Customer/ Market Research, Stakeholder Research, Presentation
The cooling backpack project was my senior capstone project that I worked on with four of my peers. This project was developed by assessing the desire of outside workers for something to keep them cool while they worked. During this project my team and I learned how to take stakeholder needs, engineer a solution from them, and develop a product.
The Mission
Create a product that addresses the need of outside workers.
A Snapshot Of The Project
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Managed a team of 5 over 9 months.
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Created and monitored product development schedule.
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Allocated work, led team meetings, managed a $2400 budget, and bridged the gap in communication across cross-functional teams.
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Created a Python-Arduino interface to collect live temperature data from 6 different sources and process data.
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Distilled customer needs into goal product specifications.
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Conducted more than 40 consumer interviews and market research.
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Ensured user feedback and data drove design choices.
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Created experiments to collect data that would be used to create our feedback control loop for the cooling unit.
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Designed key features of the controlling mechanism in SolidWorks.
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Sourced materials for the project.
Journey to Success
The project started with us brainstorming and researching potential problems to solve. After speaking with construction workers and other outside workers who are exposed to high temperatures, we eventually downselected to the cooling backpack.
After some more in-depth stakeholder research, in which we talked to HVAC experts and professors, we were able to define our goal specifications (thickness, cooling capacity, weight, noise level). These goal specifications not only met the needs of our target demographics, but also could compete with what was currently offered on the market. From this, we created a proposal to help us outline what we needed to do, how we planned to do it, and what our end result would look like.
For the first prototype, we constructed a vest with metal pipes making up some of the waterways. This vest would be attached the cooling unit and. After we completed our first prototype, we realized two things: our current manufacturing process was too tedious, and that our prototype didn't allow enough device to skin contact to be effective. The rigidity of the metal structure also prevented it from being an effective cooling medium. We spoke to the teaching staff and our HVAC experts, and consulted our interviews from our potential users and we went back to the drawing board. We came up with a new device that would incorporate a fusion of a plastic vest and backpack in order to fulfill the cooling requirements we aimed for. This required us to sacrifice one of our other design parameters, the thickness of the device, which made the final product clunkier than we first envisioned.
The new design had a vest with plastic waterways that led back to a cooling system and a pump. With the combination of a pump, and cooling unit, we needed to map what speed the pump should run at and what wattage the cooling system needed to achieve an optimal cooling capacity.
Our cooling system was controlled by a custom control box via Wi-Fi that allowed the user to set the machine to either automatic, which would autonomously alternate the cooling level in response to the temperature of the user, or a high-med-low setting which would allow for nonstop cooling at the selected setting.
The Tasks I Undertook
During this project I took the role as project manager. In this role I managed our $2400 budget, orders, strategies, assignment needs, and schedules. I developed our production timeline from the ideation phase down to the manufacturing, testing and validation phases of our product. I also led weekly meetings to get production updates, feedback, and assign new tasks. As our team became more specialized, I bridged the gaps in communication to ensure everyone was on the same page. I ameliorated group tensions by proposing plans and solutions to meet the needs of each of my group members.
Additionally, I conducted stakeholder research by speaking with professors who were knowledgeable about the thermodynamics of heating and cooling, NASA specialists who were familiar with the technologies of keeping astronauts cool or warm, and HVAC specialists. I also spoke with outdoor laborers like construction workers to get the information necessary to derive product features, limitations, and needs. This was all done to ensure that we created an overall great user experience.
Along with completing stakeholder research, I developed the manufacturing process for the first prototype, and I manufactured the pieces necessary to create the first prototype. I created a testing procedure in which we altered both the speed of the pump and the cooling of the cooling system to determine the cooling delivered by each combination of settings. I also created a data recording mechanism, that incorporated microcontrollers, specialized thermometers, and a Python-Arduino Interface.
Results The end result was a backpack connected to a vest by cooling pipes. Housed in the backpack was the water-cooling system, batteries, and pump. The pump sends the coolant (water) into the vest’s pipes, the user is then cooled, the coolant is returned to the backpack, and the process is repeated.
Unfortunately, we missed the mark on some of our desired specifications, namely weight and thickness. Our project went 2 lbs. over our desired weight and was more than 4 inches thicker than our desired thickness. Due to the budget constraints, we were unable to gain access to newer, lighter, and smaller technologies for our battery, cooling unit and pump.
Lessons Learned Along The Way
I learned that the key to a great product is constantly centering your stakeholders and your users. Making sure you understand what your users are asking for and ensuring you're doing diligence to meet there needs over your own vision is paramount when designing a product.
The most difficult part of this project for me was, on top of my normal engineering duties, like testing, coding and designing, I also was project manager. In this role, I was managing our budget, orders, strategies, assignment needs, and schedules. This particular role was not new to me, but the length of the project (7 months), along with the amount of resources I was in charge of, made the experience unique and fun. Even as difficult as it was I found the role enjoyable. It tested not only my engineering skills, but it also tested my communication, leadership and organizational skills. More importantly, it helped me grow both as a leader and an engineer.
I also greatly enjoyed working with a diverse team. Being able to work on a team allowed me to pick up new skills that eventually allowed us to finish tasks faster. I wore many different hats in this project which I believed overall made the experience enjoyable. I was able to get into every aspect of the project and use my problem solving skills to come up with unique solutions.
