Day 05 - Evaluate Your Solution

Now that we have calculated the volumes of the various items on our lists, it is time to finish the implementation phase by determining what bag we'd use. To do that, calculate the volume of a school locker. Those lockers are roughly 12 inches wide and 15 inches deep and 33 inches tall. Once you have that, go online and find a sturdy bag whose capacity is close to, but not greater than, that volume. It has to be able to fit into the locker, even when it is stuffed full!

Then create an equation in Google Sheets to add up all the volumes for items ranked 1 on your value column. Is that number greater than or less than the capacity of your bag? If it is less than, add an equation to add up all the volumes for items ranked 1 or 2 on your value column. Is that number greater than or less than the capacity of your bag?

If at any point you discover that you have identified more items than can fit into your bag, the design has failed. That's not a problem. Engineers want their first prototype to fail, so they can be sure they have not wasted resources over-engineering the final product. They want to be able to test their prototype early and get that failure data in time to do something useful with it.

So now I need you to edit your list. Reassign values. Target the objects that are way too big and rethink how you can solve that problem. Leverage the failure data to push your next design closer to success. Once you have come up with a list that makes good use of your bag without going over the limit, let me know.

Time permitting, the next step is to swap lists with another group and critique one another's design. Make note of any great ideas the other group came up with. Talk with them if you think they misrepresented the volume of an item or if they have a different volume calculation for the locker than you have. Work collegially to improve both lists. You will need to document improvements made to your list based on this feedback experience.