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Problem Definition

Table of Contents 1 Team Vision for Problem Definition Phase 2 Project Summary 3 Use Cases 4 Project Goals and Key Deliverables 5 Customer Requirements (Needs) 5.1 Purpose 5.2 Customer Requirements Table 5.3 Sources 6 Engineering Requirements (Metrics & Specifications) 6.1 Purpose 6.2 Engineering Requirements Table 7 Constraints 8 House of Quality 8.1 Purpose 8.2 House of Quality Table 9 Design Review Materials 10 Plans for next phase

Team Vision for Problem Definition Phase

Team Plan:

• Develop problem statement
• Identify stakeholders
• Develop customer needs and create engineering requirements from them
• Develop use scenarios
• Develop team roles and expectations
• Begin experimentation on existing vertical farm
• Research aquaponics and lower cost O2 and Ammonia sensors
• Compile P19762 research materials
• Develop relationship with Colombian university

Accomplishments:

• Conducted a formal interview with Dr. Esterman and followed up several times.
• Conducted interview with Dr. Alvaro Rojas
• Conducted interview with former student working on this project, Daniel Green.
• Researched both aquaponics and current Colombian farming.
• Formerly developed the problem statement including current state, future state, constraints, and goals.
• Identified stakeholders.
• Identified use scenarios.
• Began benchmarking to current solutions in the market.
• Created the list of customer needs and the list of engineering requirements and matched using the House of Quality
• Assigned team roles and established team norms.
• Created project plan and performed a risk assessment.

Project Summary

Aquaponics is an innovative system that combines raising aquatic animals with cultivating plants through a symbiotic system. Vertical farming is a modern technique where plants can be stacked and monitored to thrive in an indoor environment. To incorporate vertical farming with raising aquatic animals, some problems that arise include fish vitality, budget, energy usage, and availability of resources.

The goal of this project is to develop a functional, well-documented prototype that allows Colombian farmers to improve their current value chain. This will include training guides, set-up and tear down documents, and an in-country field test plan. Our expected final prototype should be inexpensive, easily replicated, and locally sourced. The current constraints of this project are cost, limited environmental resources, and time.

Use Cases

There are two main use scenarios for this solution.

The first is a family uses the vertical farming solution to raise crops to sustain their own needs. This applies to farmers in both rural and urban locations.

In the second scenario the vertical farming solution has use on a larger scale commercially as a source of income.

Additionally, a more specific use case on user interaction with the system can be found below:

The working document for the use cases can be found here

Project Goals and Key Deliverables

Project Goals:

• Incorporates both vertical farming and fish farming to be used by Colombian farmers
• Monitor O2 and Ammonia levels cost-effectively
• Inexpensive (less than $400)
• Can be made from locally sourced materials
• Can be easily replicated and scalable
• Crop and fish vitality

Key Deliverables:

• A working prototype
• A sensor system for O2 and Ammonia that can be used with other aquaponic designs
• Monitoring system for both fish and crops
• User manual
• Tear-down and set-up instructions
• In-country field test plan
• Technical paper and poster
• Complete and accurate design documents

Customer Requirements (Needs)

Initial customer requirements have been determined from interviews with Marcos Esterman and Dr. Alvaro Rojas (see sources subsection below for interview notes). Additionally, some have been based on the requirements from the previous year of this project.

Purpose

Decompose the Problem Statement into functions of elements needed to satisfy the customer.

Customer Requirements Table

Each requirement was ranked with a value of 1, 3 or 9, with 1 being the least important and 9 being the most.

The working document for customer requirements can be found here

Sources

1. PRP
2. Problem Statement and Customer Interview
3. Customer Interview 1 (Marcos Esterman)
4. Customer Interview 2 (Marcos Esterman and Dr. Alvaro Rojas)

Engineering Requirements (Metrics & Specifications)

Purpose

Create a contract between the engineer and the customer where indisputable satisfaction of the engineering requirements equates to customer satisfaction

Engineering Requirements Table

Engineering requirements were based off of customer requirements.

The working document for engineering requirements can be found here.

Constraints

• Inexpensive (Less than $400)

• Solution can be easily replicated

• Solution can be made from locally sourced materials

• Monitoring capability to know the status of Crops/Fish

• Fish and crops survive

House of Quality

Purpose

1. Confirm that satisfaction of the Engineering Requirements implies that all of the Customer Requirements are met.
2. Facilitate design trade off decisions

House of Quality Table

The house of quality was created using both customer and engineering requirements.

The working house of quality document can be found here.

Design Review Materials

• Pre-read Agenda
• Presentation

Plans for next phase

• In systems design, our team expects that through the completion of various methodologies including functional analysis, morphological analysis, concept generation, and selection, we will be able to successfully define the architecture and interface of our system in order to satisfy the requirements previously defined by our customer in the problem definition phase.

Here is a planned schedule for the Systems Design phase:

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