For this project each group was required to redo a previous project. The project that my group and I chose to redo was the Creative Engineering. I chose to complete this one again, because I felt that the first time I did this project, I didn't do it as well as I would have liked. I took this opportunity to "do it better" than I had originally.
We started out brainstorming problems in the world that we wanted to solve. At first we were focusing on hunger, but we later changed this to food waste. Once we chose a problem to focus on, we started looking for solutions. One of the girls in my group found a solution that helps to keep berries fresh for longer. We decided that we could test the solution (made from vinegar and water) to see if it could actually keep foods fresher for longer. We tested three different ratios of water and vinegar on strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Then we recorded data for 4 days. After our experiment, we found that our design didn't give us sufficient information. We didn't get strong enough data to prove that the vinegar solution worked the best. My group and I decided that we would design another experiment even though we wouldn't have time to run it. With the data we did have, we made a plan to help reduce food waste. Our plan was to collect the unwanted fruits from farms, then we would cover them with our vinegar solution, then we would sell the food for less than it would be in a grocery store. Hopefully by selling the foods that last longer, people wouldn't need to buy and throw out new food as often.
Engineering Design Cycle:
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Variables in Experiments:
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