Element B (Iteration 2): Analyze Your Own Prior Attempt

Week 14: Analyze Your Own Prior Attempt

PLTW Element B, Iteration 2 — Documentation and Analysis of Previous Solution Attempts. In Sprint 1 this meant researching other people’s solutions; this iteration, your own Trimester 1 Alpha prototype is the previous solution attempt being analyzed.

Document the Trimester 1 Prototype as a Prior Attempt

• Write up your Alpha prototype the way you’d write up any prior solution in a literature review: what it did, what its limitations were, and what evidence (Element I data, Element J feedback) shows those limitations.

Build an FMEA Risk Matrix

Work with your mentor to build a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for the redesign:

• List potential failure modes for the new design direction.
• Score each on Severity, Occurrence, and Detection (1-10 scale each).
• Multiply to get a Risk Priority Number (RPN) per failure mode.
• Rank failure modes by RPN — the highest-RPN items are what Sprint 5’s build must specifically guard against.

Core Deliverables

• Written analysis of your own Trimester 1 prototype as a “previous solution attempt.”
• FMEA risk matrix, reviewed with your mentor, ranked by Risk Priority Number.

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