For task 12, we examined all of the physical and functional interactions in our design.  Our functional elements include energy storage and delivery, housing, support, structure, thermal control, user interface, and connections.  For the physical elements, we broke down each functional element and put together a list of all of the corresponding physical elements.  This can be seen in the attached link.

For the schematic, we looked at all of the elements that we came up with for the product architecture, and followed the guidelines for making a schematic.  This allowed us to think about how all the parts in the design interact with each other both intentionally and unintentionally.  We then moved on to putting together the different interactions.

For the interactions, we looked at the fundamental interactions, the incidental interactions, and the environmental interaction.  For all of the interactions, the different elements were clustered into group, and each group was analyzed based on the other groups.  The fundamental interactions are the interactions that directly and intentionally affect other clusters, the incidental are the interactions between clusters due to unintentional happenings, and the environmental interactions are the interactions between the environment and our design.

For this lab, we felt that we learned much about how interactions work, but if we had more time, we would try to get much more information and detail into are schematic.  We feel that what we have done well represents the system as a whole, but there is always room for improvement.  If we had more time, getting data from either a product prototype or the current battery pack would be very useful.  For example, it could help us evaluate the waste heat that was generated by the batteries and the loads placed on the heating/cooling system.

List of Function and Physical Elements

Schematic

Interactions

Continue to Conclusion - Part B