The engineering design process teaches all of us the method we must follow in order to guarantee flushed out designs and viable products. It’s first step is stressed as the most important: brainstorming. Solid, effective, and meaningful brainstorming is essential as it expedites the design process by eliminating the need to completely start over. However, an important step to the process is recognizing when one can move on.

My teammate and I learned this important notion during the brainstorming week. We only spent two days brainstorming while everyone else spent a whole week in the process. During our brainstorming session we came up with different methods of manufacturing cup seals from PTFE sheets. PTFE otherwise known as Teflon is commonly used as the non-stick coating on pans. However, in compressors its self- lubricating properties allow it to be used as a cup seal.

We understood that we must create a method for manufacturing these seals in an easily understandable, sustainable, low-cost, and precise manner. Thus we brainstormed the following methods: a puncher machine, a crank powered “cookie-cutter”, scoring machine, a hand held “cookie-cutter”, CNC machine, and laser cutting.

After scoring the ideas in a Pew scoring matrix we concluded that the most practical ideas would be the puncher machining, laser cutting, and CNC machining because of their ability to be precise, semi- autonomous, and sustainable.

After having a talk with Matt we reevaluated our original purpose and decided that immediate testing was the key component of our project. So during the second day of brainstorming we started making prototypes of the cup seals using the laser cutter and began testing the very next day. We perviously learned that vibration, dry friction (from dust), and extensive use were the main causes for cup seal degradation. And that replacement of worn out cup seals is not a procedure carried out by hospitals in Malawi. These worn out cup seals aren’t able to form a proper seal thereby air leaks (the compressor’s output decrease) which decreases the pressure and air concentration. So we deduced that we should measure the pressure output and oxygen concentration of a O2 machine with our cup seals to track their performance.

To make sure that we didn’t damage the machine’s sieve beds (the containers filled with the nitrogen stripper which is connected directly to the compressor output valve) we did our testing on old O2 machines with faulty sieve beds. As a result to using faulty sieve beds we only measured the pressure output hoping for a pressure output range of 15-30 psi. Our prototype performed very well.

Brainstorming is essential and its impact is definitely well-stated; however, sometimes it may play a small role in your project.