Progress Made

Since the Semi-Finals, what we have done was to aim to make the prototype more clean, more efficient and more safe to use. In order to achieve that aim, we added 3 more features to the prototpye:

-A second cover in order to prevent fish scales from landing onto the hand of the user, which is also unhygienic.

-A scooper on the scaler, so fish scales which land on the surface being used to scale the fish can easily be cleaned up.

-A cover for the spikes when the scaler is not in use, so the spikes on the scaler cannot accidentally hurt the user when it isn't being used.

Reflections

It has been very tough going through this project. We found that it was indeed much harder to think of original ideas, and to have to balance school work with the making of our prototype was very difficult. We also had to deal with having to change our project idea, which made it all the more worse. I don't think any of us expected it to be this hard, yet it has been a good learning experience for all of us.

I think we could have improved a little more on communication as many times, we were confused about the specifics of the prototype and how it was supposed to work. If we had cleared up any misunderstandings beforehand, our project would have gone a lot smoother.

In addition, one more thing which could have been improved on was the distribution of work. Several times, we had two group mates working on the same thing without alerting one another, and work distribution was also rather uneven.

I think that all of us have learnt much from this experience, and hopefully we will be able to clear the semi-finals despite the challenges we have faced!

Making of the product

For the product, we used around 3 hours before finally figuring out how the shape of the product would be like. Construction of the product was simple, as we only needed to acquire a fish scaling tool, and then attach the cover to it. The cost of our product was around $1.70, way cheaper than at what other shops sell.

Picture of product

This is a picture of our prototype, not yet 100% completed. We are still making edits to the prototype to make it look better aesthetically.

Change in project

Leading up to the IVP seminar, we met several times in order to discuss the path which our project would take, and the necessary parts such as the battery, motor and watch straps. We also went our twice to get all the materials we required. After some thinking about the feasibility of the project, we changed our prototype to that of a heart rate detector which would send an alarm to the user's handphone via a software to wake the person up. We changed our idea because our original idea required too much power and was not very easy to make. However, our new idea was quickly shot down as being too extravagant and taking too many unnecessary steps. It was also recommended by our IVP mentors that we change our project idea, therefore after the IVP seminar we made the difficult decision to change our project idea.

We noticed that when scaling fish, the fish scales tend to be very hard to clean up and can be found all over the place. This creates a potential hygiene problem and also wastes large amounts of time to throw away the scales. There is also no current invention which allows for the easy storage of fish scales. Therefore, we have decided to base our new project around a knife which can allow for the easy storage of fish scales whilst scaling the fish.

Our invention will be small and compact, as well as featuring an easy way to keep fish scales. It is targeted at people who scale fish regularly, and we believe that out invention can help this people, even in a small way.

Project Shock - Other areas of the blog

We have made a few sketches of our product, as can be seen here -

We have also used several websites in our research. These are the websites we have used so far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcolepsy

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/narcolepsy/detail_narcolepsy.htm

http://www.medicinenet.com/narcolepsy/article.htm

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/category/400/Motors/1.html

http://www.healthcentral.com/adhd/news-268269-98.html

http://www.instructables.com/answers/How-could-I-make-a-variable-interval-buzzervibrat/

Reflections：

Joshua

I have definitely learnt that IVP is not as easy as I thought it would be. Me and my groupmates have faced many ideas in thinking up ideas for out invention as it is very hard to find something which can suit a large target audience. However, I believe that this project is a good one, and will allow us to go all the way!

Shiguang

Overall, I feel very happy about this project as the project was my idea. However, initially, finding a good idea was very hard. many ideas were rejected. I am sure that we can do well and pass the semi finals.

Yiwen

I do agree that this project has been tough, and many ideas have come and gone. I have learnt that it really is very had to do a good inventions project, and there have also been difficult time constraints and the like, especially with Sec 2 being as difficult as it is. However, this project can help a lot of people, and I'm happy to be working on it.

Group

So far, IVP has indeed been a large challenge. We have come up with many different ideas for the project, yet in the end we had to reject most of them. We have learnt that having an invenHowever, I do believe that this current idea about the vibrating wristband has potential, and this idea can be developed into a good project for the year.

Project Shock

We have finally decided on an idea for our IVP project - a vibrating wristband. As many as 3 million people around the world suffer from a condition called narcolepsy, which causes people to fall asleep at times during the day, regardless of how tired they are. This is a very serious problem because it could cause people to fall asleep during an activity which requires concentration, such as driving. There is also the smaller problem of people potentially falling asleep in an examination or during a meeting.

What we are proposing is a battery-powered vibrating armband which will let off strong vibrations every few minutes or so. This will help in keeping such people awake, and for people who are also tired after, say, only a few hours of sleep can also use this so they can keep awake during classes.

This idea has not been done before, and the only other known way to help narcoleptic people is via drugs such as methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine, methamphetamine, and pemoline. However, whilst these drugs can control the narcolepsy, it results in undesired side effects such as irritability and nervousness, shakiness, disturbances in heart rhythm, stomach upset, nighttime sleep disruption, and anorexia. There is also the risk of addiction to use of these drugs and tolerance to their use, resulting in higher dosages.

Some further benefits are that since it is battery powered, it is rather cheap, and since it is just an armband it is very easy to carry around. This will mean that people will buy our product, especially since it helps them stay awake if they feel very tired or stressed out. As such, we believe our project will be able to help a large amount of people around the world.

Rejected Ideas

Previously used ideas which were eventually rejected:

Laptop pad to be used whilst walking (Safety enhanced)

This idea was rejected because it still wasn't very safe to use. The placement of the safety barriers would have been very hard to implement and even after them, there would have been a danger of not paying enough attention whilst using the product.

Extendable Umbrella

This idea was rejected because it would have made the umbrella very heavy, and with extended points it would have been more susceptible to the elements and be broken apart.

Walking Stick cum Umbrella/Stool

This idea was rejected as it had already been done before, and due to inadequate research this product had not been found by the group's research.

Raincoat which can cover backpacks

This idea was rejected because there were already much easier solutions in the market, such as a sort of large sleeping cap which could be pulled over the entire bag to protect it.

Ipod/Iphone screen protector (Water-resistant)

This idea was rejected because there did not seem to be much point in it.

Laptop charger cable retractor

This idea was rejected because it was impractical and would have been TOO hard to implement.