The problem initially identified is to create a bird feeder that can’t be opened by squirrels. The creator of this experiment, Mark Rober, needed to make a bird feeder that could not be sabotaged by hungry squirrels. After many failed attempts, ultimately his solution was to create an obstacle course that would lead the squirrels to walnuts, so that they’d eat the walnuts instead of the bird feed. By the end of the video, I’d say the problem was solved, because the squirrels stopped opening the bird feeder and instead went after the walnuts Mark had placed for them, but this time without the American Ninja Warrior- esque obstacle course. The obstacle course was a way to make it more difficult for the squirrels to reach the bird feeder, and the walnuts gave the squirrels an alternative that they could target instead.

If I were faced with this problem, I would definitely approach it differently. For starters, I’m not a content creator, so I wouldn’t need to worry about making some complicated contraption for the sake of entertainment(as fun as that is). I would also go for the easiest and most efficient solution, since I wouldn’t want to waste too much time and resources. The dispenser Mark made at the end to feed the squirrels walnuts probably would’ve been my immediate solution, since it would deter them from the bird feeder by giving them their own food, satisfying every party involved. Since squirrels are very agile, trying to create a bird feeder that the squirrels can’t access, while not impossible, would be a waste of effort. Since the squirrels clearly won’t stop going after the food, the best option is to just give the squirrels a seperate food source to satisfy them. That way the bird food is safe, and the squirrels are distracted.

The concept and structure of this video is essentially what we’ll be doing for our engineering proposal. The only difference is that our project doesn’t have any practical application. But like Mark, we will be faced with a problem of our choosing, and will need to use engineering to propose a solution to said problem. The video also does a great job of showing the iterative process of design. Mark tries many different designs that fail before he reaches his final solution. Similarly, in any sort of engineering, we will likely go through many failed designs. Each subsequent design will improve upon the last based on what went wrong. It is through this process that we will find the most efficient solution to our problem. However, since we are not making any physical models,  our iterations will mostly be based on notes from our peers. We will all probably have our own ideas and find ways to improve upon and implement each others solutions. To summarize, this video is an example of what this assignment is helping us practice, which is the engineering design process.