Teaming and communication Our team had many ideas on what project we wanted to pursue, but once we finalized our idea we moved to researching possible mentors that could guide us. We emailed many professors and researchers at universities and research institutions that worked in our projects area of study. We met with one researcher, Dr.Jay Rubinstein, who was interested in our idea. From our meeting with Dr. Rubinstein we were able to increase our knowledge on hearing devices. We also got a clearer idea of what components we wanted to focus on in our project. We continued to meet as a team to research and discuss our project, as well as how we were going to implement our project.
Research and Innovation When we began researching we realized that a good portion of research and ideas have already been done and thought out regarding hearing aids. We then concluded that instead of reinventing something, we would take an original concept and improve it. Throughout all our research we explored many original concepts and ideas on hearing aid batteries, which allowed us to come up with an alternate way for battery charging. Additionally, we understood that hearing loss affected, not only developed countries, but developing countries as well. This assisted and pushed in the development of our idea. Through all of this we learned persistence and patience because we knew that in the end we would find an idea that would be new, different, and significant.
Three lessons learned:
- There are other energy sources than can be harnessed in third-world countries other than solar.
- How to apply classroom knowledge in a problem-based scenario with an engineering approach of creating a product.
- Working in a team requires a team leader who delegates and acts as a point of communication for work to be done efficiently.
Synergy Endurance Pace