Four Heads Work Better then One by Monica Martinez

Starting out the week we began developing our design proposal and as a group looked into every aspect that a design proposal is supposed to have. We split up the technical background into the preferences of each individual, and what they felt they would best be able to contribute into the group. I, for example, can be extremely passionate when it comes into knowing and researching the bio medical aspect of my design. Though trying to find neonatal regulations and the average  size for a woman’s nipple was not a task that I was able to accomplish, I did manage to find the infant mechanics of sucking. An article named The ‘Anatomy’ of Infant Sucking by Michael W. Woolridge  gave me a lot of insight regarding the process breast feeding, and the sycle that a baby has to follow in order to swallow the milk from the breast tissue. Using the information of the wave of compression followed by the child’s tongue elevation against the soft palate, we can find a way to mimic this motion in order to remove the amount of milk necessary from the breast.

The rest of my group researched more of the materials that we were thinking of using for the breast pump. When thinking about these we became conflicted because the materials were directly correlated into how the design was going to potentially look like. Before the brainstorming of designs began we needed to make sure we were potentially satisfying the customer’s needs and thus ended up looking back at our customer interviews and grouping the complaints into an idea that showed a common need when looking for a breast pump. Afterwards we ranked the needs from importance from one to eight.

When deciding which aspects we had to give first priority too there was some dissatisfaction from different members of the group. We all had different opinions regarding what we thought the breast pump had to accomplish.  I, being the group’s leader, did not want to side with anybody for the fear of having other’s be upset. I felt like a priority was for the group to realize the difference between necessities that a breast pump should be able to accomplish, and luxuries that would be nice to incorporate but are not required for the function of the breast pump. With that in mind we finally came into a consensus that having the breast pump mimic the baby’s suction rates should be our first priority, following milk storage, hands free and comfortability. This list will be added into the Design Objective of our design proposal, due to these priorities being the objectives that our design will follow.

Now that we had our priority list well organizes and everyone agreed, there was research done in the materials necessary for such design. These were included in the number two section of the technical background. Moving along as a group I feel that conflicting opinions is good to have because it means that our group members are passionate for what they are doing and thus are paying close attention into the elements necessary to make an excellent breast pump. With the last of this research we begin the design development overview of our design proposal.