Customer Interactions
Initial Interview 10/8/19:
Jack Guillet and I met with Phillip Krieg at the Forge Gardens on 10/8 to interview him about the project. While at the Forge Garden we asked him questions prepared by all eight team members and were able to view the beehives we will be working on. Jack and took turns asking questions while I took notes on what Phil answered. Phil gave us some resources to use with helpful software and firmware information and blogs about other beekeepers experiences in building their own scales.
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At the end of the interview jack and I were able o put on beekeeper suits and look at the hives in the Forge Gardens that are already occupied with bees and taste raw honey.
Interview Questions and Answers
Second Meeting with Phil 10/24/19:
After two weeks of researching, brainstorming, and designing we decided to meet with Phil to update him on our progress and present our design idea. All eight members of the Bees team went to the Forge Garden together to see Phil and ask him questions.
Phil seems skeptical about our design idea. He questioned why we would need some sort of lift mechanism to use with the load cells. Although he has never used a commercially produced hive scale he knows that most of them use just four load cells. I tried to explain to him the research we have done in saying that we know load cells are a great tool for this application, but we are afraid that we will not be able to afford load cells with a lower creep value based on the budget for this project. I also mentioned that the company Phil recommended we look in to, Open Hive Scale, does not use load cells because they are not meant to be under a constant load. Phil asked that we do more research on what other companies are doing to counteract this creep value.
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Phil also mentioned that the hive can weigh up to 400 pounds in the summer. This was a little but of a surprise as we thought that it only went up to around 300 pounds, so we had to scratch our idea of sing load cells from a Wii Fit Board.
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I left this meeting feeling stressed over the work we had done and the work we still have to do. I know that a status update with Phil and Dr. JAK is in two weeks and I know that by then we need to have something that Phil will be excited about.