This week, we had several meetings about our intended product and its feasibility within the scope of the semester. The major risk now is that we decided to pivot away from working with drones, so we then spent the next few days doing some research on our other ideas for the upcoming design review presentation, ultimately helping to pinpoint and flesh out a new idea we can go with for our capstone project. To mitigate the risk of the success of our project, we are actively keeping our designated professor and TA in the loop throughout the whole process. The main change we made to our existing design is removing drone usage for the shade provider and moving to a more stationary design. This change was necessary beacuse not only is drone autonomous flight challenging to get done within one semester, but there were also outside factors that weren’t initially considered: getting permission from CMU to fly a drone, and/or having to locate an area to fly a drone, and to continue to use drones, we would need to review the CMU code for rules and requirements. No more cost was incurred from this change; costs were redistributed across new components of our design.
A was written by Bonnie, B was written by Ore, and C was written by Nicholas.
B: From a social perspective, beaches are shared public spaces that bring together diverse groups across age, ability, and economic backgrounds. Not everyone has the same physical strength or mobility to repeatedly adjust a heavy umbrella in sand, particularly older adults, individuals with disabilities, or caregivers managing children. By reducing the physical effort required to maintain shade, our solution promotes greater accessibility and inclusivity in recreational spaces. Additionally, in hot coastal regions where extreme sun exposure can pose health risks, improving access to reliable shade supports public health and encourages longer, safer social interaction in outdoor environments.
