Today I met with an engineer at Forthright named Bryan to check in on the progress I’ve made in my research and give me some guidance by helping with focusing the research and organizing it all. He helped me break the project down into multiple chunks and identify core questions that needed to be answered for each portion of the research. These sections were patents on related technology, studies done by specific professors, market research, and how effective an existing product would work with the one I’m researching about. Bryan also showed me a picture that outlined the product development process and where this work belonged on it. I saw how many steps go into creating a new product and the phases that I’m doing now – the feasibility part of phase 1 and concept development from phase 2. This work has taught me the emphasis that engineers put on learning about a product that they might put more work into. When you think of something you would want to invent, often the first thoughts are: has anyone else done it, what is already out there that’s like it, what’s the state of the art, and has anyone done any studies on the topic that would help me gain information and reach my own conclusions. Being a company that needs to be sure about these things, that initial learning and discovery process is extremely critical to the success of both the product and the company in the long run.
