Puzzle Design Challenge Brief

Client: Donoway Furniture, Inc.

Target Consumer: High school age

Designer: _____________Micah Hill_________________

Problem Statement:
A local 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:
Donoway 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 a
person who is three years of age or older.

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.
Puzzle Design Challenge Deliverables (75 pts)
1. Define a problem - design brief (1pts) and picture of you with your creation (2pts)
2. Generate concepts (17pts)
2.1. Excel document with histogram (2pts)
2.2. Explanation of how and why you did all the measurements (2pts)
2.3. Explain acceptable range (outliers), how did you calculate it, and what does it mean (2pts)
2.4. Brainstorming sketches: explain why you made them and what kind they are (3pts)
2.5. Pieces modeled in Fusion - large slide show of 3D parts (8pts)
3. Develop a solution (30pts)
3.1. Final sketch - flip book (2pts)
3.2. Picture of multiview and isometric drawings by hand (no dimensions, but show hidden lines)(4pts)
3.3. Calculate volume and surface area of at least 2 parts using dial caliper. Show work (7 pts)
3.4. Technical drawings - large slide show of drawing files (5pts) Add volume and surface area from
“physical properties” menu to each drawing (4 points)
3.5. Select proper front view and proper number of projections in your drawings. Write couple of
sentences about how you determined front view and number of projections (3 pts)
3.6. Teacher’s signature verifying proper dimensioning____________________________(5pts)
4. Construct and test prototype (10 pts)
4.1. Picture of the fully assembled cube (2pts)
4.2. Which assembly constraint did you use to constrain the parts of the puzzle to the assembly such
that it did not move? How many degrees of freedom remained? (2pts)
4.3. Teacher’s signature verifying your assembly__________________________(3pts)
4.4. "Bubbled" drawing - large picture (3pts)
4.5. Extra credit – embed a YouTube video of your animation into your Weebly (7 pts)
5. Evaluate the solution - Let your friends and relatives (at least five) solve your puzzle cube, record time, and
compile the data in this step. How does the age of the puzzle solver affect solution time? 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. Reflect – would you change anything in your cube design? Why or why not? (5
pts) Compare your calculations from 3.3. to physical properties from 3.4. Were they the same or different?
What could’ve contributed to differences? (3 pts)
6. Present the solution - your conclusion with detailed explanation of your puzzle cube project experience
(at least 200 words). Address statistics, Fusion experience (part creation, dimensioning, animation) and
anything else that you would like me to know. Also, 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. (7pts)