Sprinkler System Control Box
This project was different from all my other design projects because the goal of the project was not to came up with a novel solution to some problem: we were not designing a better sprinkler system control box. Rather this project was supposed to teach us how to design an object and a system from a human factors perspective.
Control Box Overview
Although the phrase the devil is in the details holds true on every design project, it was especially true for this one. We were not looking at big picture design; every detail mattered. Take, for example, the requirement that we have a physical keyboard. Saying that we wanted a QWERTY keyboard with of length X and height Y was not enough. We had to specify details of the keyboard pitch, key resistance, key spacing, displacement required, key color, font type, and font color. Moreover, we had justify each decision by citing relevant academic research or a relevant standard.
Keyboard Layout Specifications: Image created in part from a template found online
Even the simplest aspects of the design were strictly detailed. We dedicated multiple paragraphs to describing the dimensions, resistance, colors, and fonts of the on/off switch.
When assigning colors, listing a standard color such as red or blue was not sufficient. Colors had to be described as a coordinate in some color space. Our green LED was not simply green. It was an LED that emitted a light of 500 nm which equated to an RGB coordinate of (0, 255, 146).
Table from our report detailing the specifications of LED colors
This assignment was not a traditional engineering design project in the same sense that were given a problem and asked to solve it. Nonetheless, this project taught me a great deal about the importance that even seemingly negligible details have on the user experience.
To download a copy of the report, please click here.
Teammates on this project were Radhika Mohan and Cindy Liu