Research
At the heart of any great design is better research. The research component of our project accounted for over a third of the total work time and was aided by everything from patents to professors.
Noah and I began our project with 6 different problems we would like to solve. The majority of these problems had to do with athletics due to the passions of both Noah and I. These problems ranged from overheating turf fields causing burns in athlete's feet and footwear to issues regarding physically disabled swimmers. Noah and I used a decision matrix to settle on the problem of difficult to replace track spikes.
Noah and I then began research on issues regarding track spikes. This research spanned multiple artifact types from research documents to old and worn track spikes. Most importantly Noah and I collected patent research on existing solutions to our problem. |
Developing a well written problem statement is a task that is much easier said that done. Every group in our class presented their first iteration problem statement to the class and received feedback from the class. Noah and I learned a lot from that exercise and reworked our statement to properly include the who, what, when, where, why, and how many of the problem.
After rewriting our problem statements for a second time we resubmitted them on large post it notes to be reviewed again by the class. Each student gave each statement two "stars", or a positive comment, and a "wish", or a negative statement. Using that feedback we were able to finalize our problem statement. |
Market research was an important part of our preparation as it is essential to know what consumers want/need. We had to make sure our problem was something that was apparent not only for us but for track athletes from all events, levels, and geographic regions.
After about 24 hours we were lacking in the number of respondents we had hoped to achieve. Luckily, we were able to come into contact with Robert Johnson, Co-Founder of LetsRun.com, and he was able to publish our survey on his website where we were able to reach a much larger audience. 48 hours after having our survey posted on LetsRun.com our number of respondents had quadrupled and we were able to reach well over our goal for respondents. |
Noah and I compiled all of our Market Research into a PowerPoint where we could look at our data as a whole and make some conclusions from our survey results. We were able to conclude that this problem is indeed something that is being experienced across the nation and we have reason to believe it is also something experienced across the world. Another invaluable piece that our market research has presented us with is information on how much someone would be willing to spend on a set of track spikes that solved this issue. This information will allow us to ensure that our final solution is not only one that solves the problem but a solution that is marketable.
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