Create & Innovate (Annalise M.)

This week we have been focusing on finishing up our final presentation of what we have accomplished so far, and finding materials and putting together our prototype. The final presentation is a power point that restates our problem, states all the key points of our prototype through engineering and biological aspects, and shows our future plans (milestones).

To keep you updated on the making of our prototype; the orders for grommets and clips came in, and we are waiting on our fabric samples to come in from Jason Mills Inc. On Friday, we took a short field trip to Hancock Fabrics to see if we could find some webbing fabric that could give us ideas for our prototype if the fabrics we ordered don’t come in time. Because our materials will be late, we are just going to make a prototype of the materials available to us and create the product to the best we can.

Through this creative process of thinking of ways to build our model, the idea of adding an “escape zipper” came to me. Because the Buckle Blanket is going to be wrapped, hooked, and secured around the individual using it, it is going to be difficult for them to get out in an emergency situation, so I thought it would be a great idea to have a zipper that would zip open big enough for the person to be able to fit through. The zipper would have to be on the side along with the fabric bordering the knit mesh and would have to be somewhat covered with some fabric folded over it like you would see on a jacket. We will have to do more researching for this but we can make it work. The 3D model on Google Sketch Up has been updated with the knit mesh looking more tight and secure, the only thing that needs to be added is the clasp hooks. After this week, we should be finished with our presentations and model, completing the third step in our maker cycle.