Problem Solving/ Engineering Process Activity 1 Problem Solving/ Engineering Process

Background My wife teaches Computer Applications and Intro to Business at a local high school. Part of the curriculum includes keyboarding skills. She wanted the keyboards covered but still be able to type

Problem and Goal Statement Keyboards needed to be covered in such a way so that the students would learn to touch type without looking at the keys. However the covers must be easy to put on the keyboards and be removed at anytime.

Problem Solving Approach Problem- keyboards needed to be covered. Collection of information – covers need to be opaque to prevent students from seeing the letters on the keyboard, they must also be easy to use. And could not restrict hand positioning and finger movement. Possible solutions – we explored using cardboard boxes. Another idea was to buy commercial keyboard covers. The third idea was to make our own

Selection of best Solution we decided that the cardboard box idea would be to restrictive and would not be pleasing to the eye. After checking prices at http://www.prokeyco.com/, It was decided that commercial covers would not be cost effective. Commercial covers are priced between $10 and $15 each. We needed 32. For this idea we decided to buy standard pillow cases, cut them in half and sew them back leaving an opening for the cord in the back and the front open to have access for the hands to go in. the cost would be about $6.00 for four covers. One set of two cases could be cut in half to make four covers each.

Results A work in progress Placing covers Ready to use

Three ways to use the product Final product in use Three ways to use the product