Balinado 1

Puzzle Design
Challenge
Leanna Balinado
December 13, 2017
Intro to Engineering Design
Mr. Pochop
3rd Period
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Puzzle Design Challenge Brief

Client Fine Office Furniture, Inc.

Target Consumer Ages: High school aged

Designer Leanna Balinado

Problem Statement
A local office furniture manufacturing company throws away tens of thousands of scrap ¾”
hardwood cubes that result from its furniture construction processes. The material is expensive,
and the scrap represents a sizeable loss of profit.

Design Statement
Fine Office Furniture, Inc. would like to return value to its waste product by using it as the raw
material for desktop novelty items that will be sold on the showroom floor. Design, build, test,
document, and present a three-dimensional puzzle system that is made from the scrap hardwood
cubes. The puzzle system must provide an appropriate degree of challenge to high school
students.

Criteria
1. The puzzle must be fabricated from 27 – ¾″ hardwood cubes.
2. The puzzle system must contain exactly five puzzle parts.
3. Each individual puzzle part must consist of at least four, but no more than six hardwood
cubes that are permanently attached to each other.
4. No two puzzle parts can be the same.
5. The five puzzle parts must assemble to form a 2 ¼″ cube.
6. Some puzzle parts should interlock.
7. The puzzle should require high school students an average of 5 minutes/seconds to solve.
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Brainstormed Possible Part

Combinations
(50 possible parts)
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Prototypes

I chose this one ↑↑

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Why I chose my design

I chose my design because it has unique parts and has a moderate level of
difficulty. Although my blocks don’t seem difficult, a lot of people can’t solve this
in five minutes. At many points of the puzzle, you can be deceived to feel that you
are so close to solving it but end up not solving it. My design is argued to be too
easy or too difficult when observing it. Overall, I chose this design because it is
tricky, not too easy, and not too difficult.

My Design Pieces
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Multi-view sketch of each part from Onshape

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(Special Needs Focus Student)

Isometric Views of Assembled Cube

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Comments
Sean O’Bra: “Looks good, no dimensional errors at all as far as I can tell.”
Jasmine Jones: “Looks all good to me.”
Hannah Lee: “The dimensions are all good to me.”

Building Process
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Statistics and Data

Slope: -0.89
Y-intercept: 3.009
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Summary
My puzzle cube design meets the criteria of the project and it does provide a
challenge to high school students based on my solution times. My entire puzzle
contains twenty-seven .75” hardwood cubes of five puzzle parts containing no
more than six blocks. Also, none of my puzzle pieces are the exact same and two
pieces interlock.

Possible Changes
If I had to make changes to my puzzle cube, I would try to make the pieces
more complex. I would also change some of the colors so that it has a color scheme
and is more visually appealing. I would also take my time to make sure my cube
pieces were perfect, even though I tried my hardest.

Conclusion
1.​ ​Why is it important to model an idea before making a final prototype?

Modeling an idea allows you to always make improvements and change your ideas
before building a solid prototype.

2. Which assembly constraint(s) did you use to constrain the parts of the puzzle to
the assembly such that it did not move? Describe each of the constraint types used
and explain the degrees of freedom that are removed when each is applied between
two parts. You may wish to create a sketch to help explain your description.
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In Onshape, I used the assembly tab to put my puzzle cube together. I used the
“fastened mate” tool to put all my parts together.

3.​ ​Based on your experiences during the completion of the Puzzle Design
Challenge, what is meant when someone says, “I used a design process to solve the
problem at hand”? Explain your answer using the work that you completed for this
project.

This meant that the person followed the entire design process: defining the
problem, generating concepts, developing a solution, constructing a prototype and
testing, and to evaluate the solution.

4.​ ​How does the gender of the puzzle solver affect solution time? Be specific and
provide evidence to support your answer.

Depending on the gender, you may be able to solve the cube faster or slower
because of your intellectual level. However, I believe that gender has nothing to do
with how long it takes you to solve a puzzle.

5.​ ​How does the age of the puzzle solver affect solution time?
a.​ ​Make a specific statement related to the rate of increase or decrease of solution
time with respect to age. Provide evidence that supports your statement.

The younger you are, it becomes harder to solve it. For example, if a three year old
did it they probably wouldn’t solve it. But, if a fifteen year old did it they would be
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able to solve it. However, that is not always the case because in my data, a fifteen
year old solved it, while a fifty year old couldn’t.

b.​ ​Write an equation using function notation that represents ​puzzle solution time
in terms of ​age​. Be sure to define your variables and identify units.

y= 3x y=time it would take to solve the puzzle, x= age, 3= average time for first
attempt.

c.​ ​Predict the solution time on the first attempt of a child who is 3 years of age.
Show your work.

y=3x
y=3(3)
y=9

d.​ ​Predict the solution time on the first attempt of a person who is 95 years of age.
Show your work.

y=3x
y=3(95)
y=285

e.​ D
​ o these predictions make sense? Why or why not?

No, because you cannot put a specific function that will meet the needs of all
participants. Everyone is different.

f.​ W
​ hat is a realistic domain for the function?

8-30 age group.

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g.​ ​Collect additional data to verify your mathematical model.

y=3(8)=24
y=3(10)=30
y=3(20)=60

Dimensions and Annotations 4

Views 5

Construction 4.75

Color 4.75

Feedback 5

Testing 5

Analysis 4

Optimization 5

Total 37.5