Acne- Our Solution
By: Jack Mulligan, Johnny Walsh, Chase McAndrew, and Simon Moatar The assignment we were given was to choose a world problem and use the Engineering Design Cycle to solve the problem. The world problem we decided to research was acne. Many people went for trying to solve things that can't really be solved and honestly I have to say our group was kind of in the middle. My group decided to make a spot cleaner that you put on you pimples. The first part of our project was to research the problem. We quickly realized its much more difficult to find a solution for acne then we thought because there are many different skin types and types of acne. Then once we had all of the information we needed we had to decide what we wanted to make. We brainstormed about 20 ideas then we narrowed it down to a few and then we talked about the pros and cons of each thing until we decided on making a spot cleaner. Our prototype consisted of honey, tea tree oil, water, and baking soda. We made it this way so it is easy for people to make it at home. Our testing was extremely limited but when we used it on me once it seemed to work well by drying out the pimple. |
Concepts
Step 1: Identify Need or Problem- My group decided to choose acne as our world problem and try to find a way of preventing it or getting rid of it. Step 2: Research Need- My group chose 3 sources per person to take notes from credible sources that had to do with acne and how to prevent/get rid of it. Step 3: Develop Possible Solutions- After brainstorming for a few minutes we came up with 4 possible solutions, which were a face wash, a face mask, a facial shocker, and a spot cleaner. Step 4: Select Best Solution- We chose to make a facial spot cleaner. Step 5: Construct Prototype- When making the spot cleaner we decided to use ingredients that were both great for people's skin and that were easy to find, whether find it at home or purchase it at a drug store. We decided to use only 4 ingredients to keep it simple so anyone could make it. We used honey, tea tree oil, water, and baking soda. Step 6: Test & Evaluate- We did not have much time to test, but in the short two days that we did we tested it on me and it seemed to reduce the inflammation of the whitehead on my face and dried out the pimple. Step 7: Present Solution- Our presentation included the types of acne, best treatments that you can buy currently, and our solution and its ingredients. Step 8: Redesign- If we were to redesign we would use more and different ingredients that are better than the ones we used, use exact measurements of the ingredients that we used, and test our solution on many different people over a longer time span. |
Reflection: I learned a lot during this project. I need to work on staying on task as much as possible. I noticed that I would sometimes spend 5 minutes talking to friends where I could have used that to improve my product and make our presentation better. But, I did help a lot during the construction of the prototype. I did really have a lot of fun figuring out how to make our product.