2.3 Paper Prototype Evaluation
Your team will have external stakeholders evaluate your robot design. Your team's multi-view drawing and task scenario diagrams will act as a paper prototype of your robot design. Receiving constructive feedback will allow you to improve the design before creating a functional prototype.
Identify which types of participants would be most relevant and useful for evaluating your robot design. Be sure your participants will reflect the diversity of the real-life stakeholders that might use the robot or be affected by its use. Your team will need to conduct individual evaluations with 3-5 people, so determine how you might recruit these people, as well as when and where you would conduct each evaluation session.
Prepare a script to guide the evaluation session. The goal is to: (a) clearly and concisely present your robot design, and (b) gather constructive feedback on how to improve the robot design. Here are important elements to include in the script:
Introduce yourself and the evaluation purpose. Let the participant know the purpose is to improve your team's conceptual design of a robot before creating a functioning physical prototype. Let the participant know that questions and feedback are welcomed throughout the evaluation session.
Use your value proposition and multi-view drawing to introduce your team's robot concept. Be sure to explain the robot's overall purpose and the value it would provide. Briefly explain the sensors and other components that the robot would use to accomplish its tasks. Be sure to give the participant sufficient opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. As necessary, ask the participant specific questions to prompt feedback on specific aspects of the robot concept.
Use your task scenario diagrams to show the specific tasks that your robot prototype will demonstrate. Let the participant know that the robot task demonstrations are limited to a 6 foot by 6 foot space, so each diagram represents a top-view model of the demonstration environment. For each scenario, describe the overall goal of the task, and explain each step the robot will take to complete the task. Be sure to give the participant sufficient opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. As necessary, ask the participant specific questions to prompt feedback on specific aspects of the robot tasks and the demo environment.
Thank the participant for their time and feedback. If applicable, invite the participant to evaluate your functional robot prototype after it has been created — or to attend the public presentation event at the end of the semester.
Conduct individual evaluations with a total of 3-5 people, and record notes during (or immediately following) each session. The sooner you get feedback and ideas written down, the less likely things will be forgotten. Ideally, at least two team members would be present for each session, so one person facilitates the session, while the other person records notes. Your full team does not necessarily need to be present for each evaluation, but be sure each team member helps conduct at least one evaluation.
As a team, use the evaluation notes to analyze the feedback from all the participants, and summarize your team's evaluation findings. Thoughtfully review and analyze the feedback as a team, in order to determine what improvements could be made to your robot design and the tasks that will be demonstrated. Include the following information in the evaluation findings:
Participants: Describe each participant in terms of their gender, age, stakeholder role, or other relevant characteristics. Do not include the names of participants.
Summary of Feedback: List the feedback that you collected. This can be a bulleted list. The feedback doesn't have to prioritized or ranked, but it may be helpful to organize it in some meaningful way (e.g., lists of feedback by participant, lists of feedback by topic or feature, etc.).
Key Findings: Describe what your team decided were the key findings that should be acted on, and explain why.
Design Revisions: Describe what changes will be made to your team's robot specifications.
Make any necessary revisions to your team's robot specifications. If necessary, update your team's multi-view drawing and/or task scenario diagrams.
❏ Deliverable
Submit your team's evaluation findings and revised robot specifications
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