Hello IPPDers!

As we move into the final week of the semester, our team has really started to feel the excitement of the project taking shape. This week marked a major milestone: completing our System Level Design Review. After weeks of refining diagrams, tightening up requirements, and practicing our flow, it was rewarding to finally present our full system vision and get positive, constructive feedback from the panel. The SLDR helped us confirm that we’re on the right path and highlighted a few areas we’re eager to improve as we move forward.

Right after the review, we kicked off the next big step in our project: ordering our first batch of parts. Seeing components go from discussion to the actual purchasing stage made everything feel much more concrete. It’s one thing to talk about designs on paper, but it’s another to start acquiring the pieces that will eventually become our working product. We’ve been tracking costs, checking lead times, and making sure everything aligns with the goals we set earlier in the semester.

Overall, this final stretch has been both busy and energizing. Finishing the semester with a completed SLDR and the first parts on the way gives us a strong starting point for next spring’s build phase. We’re excited to keep the momentum going and return after the break ready to start assembling and testing the real system. Enjoy this pic of some of us during our presentation.

Good afternoon IPPDers!

This week was our PR SLDR session, which basically meant a full day of teams showing off their draft SLDR presentations to peers, faculty, and coaches. It was our first real chance to run through everything out loud, and it quickly showed us which parts flowed nicely and which parts still need a little cleanup. The feedback was super helpful; we got pointers on tightening up our subsystem explanations, smoothing out our prototype timeline, clarifying a few testing details, and making our budget a bit more readable. We also sent in our official project title for the SLDR event program, which somehow made everything feel much more real and solidified our group’s identity. After the review, our team dove back into the SLDR draft to start making edits and fixing the biggest gaps. Overall, PR SLDR was a great checkpoint, and now we feel much more prepared heading into the final SLDR after Thanksgiving.

Everyone have a great break! We’re almost there. One cannot reach the mountaintop without the climb. “We shall fight on the beaches… we shall never surrender!” – Winston Churchill

This week was a really productive one for our team. We finalized the first draft of our budget and put together our first real shopping list, which helped us get a clearer picture of what we actually need to buy and how everything fits into our overall plan. We also spent time researching local welding and assembly services to see who might be the best fit for fabricating the larger structural parts of our system once we receive our parts and move into the build phase. On top of that, we were in the lab running tests with the equipment we already have, just to get a better feel for its current limits, what works well, and what still needs improvement. Those tests gave us some helpful baseline data and a clearer idea of which components might need to be upgraded or replaced down the road. Overall, it felt like a good blend of planning, research, and hands-on work that set us up well for what’s coming next. Thumbs up for the home stretch.

“Thirty minutes, for the rest of our lives” – T.T.

Hello IPPDers,

Prototype Inspection Day (PID) was an exciting and rewarding milestone for our team as we finally got to present our design to experienced professional engineers. After a couple months of brainstorming, CAD modeling, and researching components, seeing our nearly final design was a proud moment for everyone. Our prototype showcased the main system features, including the safety locking mechanisms, transparent chamber, and steam diffusion mechanism, allowing us to show it off to the judges. During the event, we received insightful feedback on improving chamber materials, optimizing sensor placement, and refining steam distribution. A couple faculty member specifically encouraged us to incorporate Rain-X to prevent condensation on the windows. Simple, but works. The event also gave us a better sense of the obstacles we may encounter in practice and what challenges remain. Overall, PID was a major step in validating our concept and preparing for the next stage of development.

Hello IPPD students, faculty, and spectators,

This week, we shifted gears toward getting ready for Prototype Inspection Day (PID) and looking ahead to our System Level Design Review (SLDR). With the semester wrapping up soon, our team focused on our first prototype session and how we’ll test it to make sure we’re on the right track. We also talked about sourcing components and figuring out what to build versus what to buy. During class, we went over what to expect for the SLDR presentation and started outlining how our system will come together. We are looking forward to talking with experienced engineers next week and getting all the feedback we can before the first real build phase begins. Overall, we’re feeling good about our progress and excited to show what we’ve been working on before heading into spring.

As always, go Gators, beat the Dawgs. Dream Steam is entering its Tebow Era. See you all at the game tomorrow!

Hello IPPD faculty, students, and anyone else tuning in,

This week, we had our official PDR presentation in front of the Food Science board sponsoring our project. We were a bit nervous at first, but all went well. They were super friendly and provided insightful feedback into our project. For some of us in Dream Steam, it was our first ever professional presentation in front of a board having sway in our project and providing the funds, rather than just a simple presentation for a class project. We’ve spent the rest of the week taking all feedback into account in order to prepare for demonstrating our prototype at Prototype Inspection Day. We know there will be challenges in deciding what to keep and what to leave out for our first prototype demonstration, but we look forward to working together and tackling those challenges head on as a team. Some feedback was minimal in regards to our overall scope of work, but some will require us to shift our focus and think in new ways. It may seem daunting, but know that Dream Steam will show up and show out!

Hello IPPDers! This week, our team focused on finalizing our PDR presentation!

We focused more on our liaison’s expectations than rigorously adhering to the program’s requirements, we made great strides this week on our PDR presentation. After carefully considering Dr. McIntosh’s suggestions, we recorded an updated version of our presentation for him to review and offer more suggestions. The use of saturated steam instead of dry steam, a brief definition of active learning in a single sentence, and brief summaries of our functional decompositions and concept combinations, which he found especially enjoyable, were some of the major enhancements he pointed out. In addition to these adjustments, we kept improving our presentation for Monday by practicing our delivery and polishing our slides. One other key component of our presentation is our House of Quality, pictured on this post! We wanted to make sure to effectively communicate how our specifications are aligned with requirements of the project, which this visual does well. We also gained a deeper comprehension of the subject matter and increased our confidence in presenting our design development as a result of this process. To guarantee a seamless and interesting presentation, we also took the time to go over the flow and transitions between sections. All things considered, we are confident and prepared for the review next week.

Hello IPPDers!

This week, we had our PR PDR Presentation, where we shared our progress so far and where our project is going in the near future. After presenting in class, we received a lot of good feedback on our presentation. We also received a lot of constructive criticism, which was great because now we know what specific improvements we can make for our presentation next week. Later in the week, we also met with our Liaison, Dr. McIntosh. He also gave us some great input on our presentation, especially from the perspective of someone outside of IPPD, unaware of the presentation criteria/requirements. We agreed in that we felt somewhat constrained in the development of our presentation due to these requirements. Dr. Macintosh explained a clearer objective for us with this presentation, which is what we’ll be looking into developing next week. We are also looking to make clear assignment to make each teammate responsible of certain parts of the product at this point, in order to maximize what we can deliver for our review next week.

Hello IPPD,

This week, we made the exciting shift from just picking a concept to actually building out the system architecture and gearing up for our Preliminary Design Review. We rolled up our sleeves and started breaking the idea into subsystems, figuring out how everything connects and works together. Along the way, we talked through trade-offs, brainstormed solutions to possible challenges, and made sure our design still checks all the boxes for customer needs. It was a good mix of problem-solving and creativity, and it really helped us see how our concept will function as a complete system. By the end, we had a clearer game plan and a solid foundation to present for our PDR. It feels like the project is really starting to come together. We spent many late hours working on our designs, but it will pay off in the end. Right now it seems we are going to hone in on a 4-champer design for testing 4 different food samples at once.

Hello IPPDers!

This past week, our team started working on concrete design sketches for our steam blancher system. Each one of us developed our own ideas, and then shared at our liaison meeting. It was interesting to see that many of our ideas were closely linked, with similar features and considerations. Being exposed to the same prompt on the project, and using shared experience from our classes, we still came up with different concepts, which we are now planning to refine into a final concept through design reviews and other comparison tools. We received great feedback from our liaison, and are looking forward to coming up with a final design and making it come to life!

We’ve attached a sketch of one of our designs here as well!