Reflection of Design Thinking

Sabrina Weigerstorfer

When we started this project, I was fortunate enought to be allowed to join an already existing group to help them complete their project. We knew we wanted to make a map but 'how' was the quesion. As reasearch gathering, we went out and surveyed new students, teachers, and parents about whether they had gotten lost at SAS before and what they think could improve navigation around SAS. Out of our collective data we were able to create four different potentia prototypes that could solve navigation at SAS: an app, a stationary map, a sign post, and an interactive mall map. For all of those we made simple prototypes out of card board and split into two groups to survey people, I made the sign post prototype. We surveyed 44 people, ranging from teachers and parents, to visitors and parents. All of them had either a neutral, or the majority, poitive reaction to our questions and different prototypes. The one that had the most votes was an app, but due to our limited time frame and limited coding capabilities, that building an app would take too much time and was not worth the cost. So we decided to make the next best idea within the reasonable time and cost frame: the stationary map. The map is built from a large 70x108cm sheet of clear tempered glass and a simple outlined map of all four levels of the High School. The glass we got so graciously from Mr. Bright. As an added feature, we installed push buttons that when pressed, light up the desired department on the map. To achieve this we needed to use four Arduinos and 24 buttons and lights (24 each). To build the stand which the glass will be placed on, we came together to design a stand made out of 12 card board boxes taped together. We measured it and determined the angle of elevation the glass will be placed on together as a team, as well as executing and putting together this product. The maps were designed from the blueprints of the High School building, but were simplified and had the lables removed to make it cleaner.