Test Ideology
For our real world testing, we plan to give TillBot to a few test subjects without any assistance and ask for feedback on how to make TillBot more consumer friendly. For more information, read our testing procedures document linked here.
Updates 5/1/24
After introducing the robot to Joshua's mother, she gave us some feedback about the end user experience.
| Who | We chose Josh’s mom to test this product because Josh’s house had ample garden space to test and moe the robot around on different terrain | |
| Where/When | We tested at Josh’s house because of the large garden over a weekend for about an hour | |
| Directions | We gave directions on how to use the product, moving around the robot through the app, and then also controlling the nozzle and spray. In addition, we gave a small demo just to show each function and give a sense of what the robot could do | |
| Questions | Before the test, we asked about the design and size of the robot, and asked her to consider the movement and abilities of the robot as she tested. After the test, we asked her about her thoughts on movement and also effectiveness and if she would consider this against normal weeding and the price range she would consider | |
| Goal | We were hoping to learn a lot more about what an actual gardener would think about our product rather than our own opinions. I think this test was really helpful in allowing us to see it actually be used in the real world and how others would interpret the use of our product instead of just us ourselves | |
| Summary | The robot moved around pretty effectively, but struggled to move through tight spaces and sometimes between and over branches. It also needed to be refilled a lot of times with water, which we simulated instead of an actual solution so no plants would be harmed in case of an accident. A lot of water was used and it was initially hard to aim/spray the correct area | |
| Feedback | They told us that we should consider trying to make it smaller in size, and also use less spray because not that much liquid is needed to kill an actual weed. It was also pretty energy intensive, and was running out of battery at the end. They said that they would consider the product, but its inability to get in smaller spaces was a negative because a lot of weeds are in those smaller areas between and under plants | |
| Reflection | Our product became a lot larger than we initially wanted and had less mobility than we thought it would have. It wasn’t surprising to see that the liquid ran out really quickly every time, and it was something we had planned to adjust in the next week to fix the spray with a better nozzle |
Video Demonstrations