The Stepping Stones Towards our Journey- Andrea Cazares

Hello friends of the Ann Richards Bio-Engineering pathway! My name is Andrea Cazares and I am excited to announce the reveal of our prototype for our charging station. After a long time of brainstorming and coming up with ideas of what we wanted and needed, it feels great to see our product in action.

As I am writing this, the prototype is very close to being done. Idalis, my partner, is using her engineering expertise to construct a prototype that is effective and will be a clear sign of our goals for our project. Cutting out the shapes for our project reminds me how in eighth grade we used to construct shapes out of construction paper. That is currently what we are doing.

We are being very patient in waiting for our materials. We have been waiting for a couple of weeks and though we are busily working on our prototype, we would still like to see our materials in action. We decided on acrylic for our design because it is clear and kind of has a futuristic look to it. I think that the choice of acrylic was a very wise one because acrylic is cheap and has a steady and durable characteristics to it. But working on our prototype is a great way to spend the time that we have before  our materials come in.

In addition to acrylic, we decided on using less chargers. We wanted to save a lot of surface area just because we know that one of our priorities for our design is to be able to fit our design in between computers or in small spaces.

I am honestly excited to start our design process. I can’t wait to cut the acrylic in the Maker Space and see our design with our own eyes. Part of the reason why this is such a difficult process is mainly because of all of the waiting that occurs. The process of waiting can take patience and being able to see it happen was incredibly intriguing. The construction paper is a very well example of our actual material. Or at least a good representation. Our design can show that the holes are present and demonstrate the holes that will be on our actual design . Idalis did a good job of cutting out perfect circles for our design.