12/5/2022 – Our team changed the splash guard to be 1/2 the circumference of the pipette facing the user, so that the tip reloader would still be functional and the user would still be protected.

UPDATE! Our team continued to work on our risk analysis on 11/06/2022. We separated our large fault tree into five smaller fault trees so that they would be easier to read/follow. We also worked on making these fault trees more based off of our FMEA chart so that causation correlation is more apparent. Additionally, we edited our traceability matrix from what we learned when brainstorming for the FMEA chart and fault trees. We added two rows onto our traceability matrix including a row about having pipette tips ready for use in the reloader, and a splash guard that will protect users from chemical burn or contamination of their experiment.

Link to our FMEA.

Our team began brainstorming the risk analysis of our efficient pipette design in class on 10/26/2022. We thought of possible causes and effects of things that could go wrong with our pipette. Initially, we thought of two main categories: pipette malfunction that results in injury, and pipette malfunction that results in incorrect data/contaminated sample. One main thing would cause these two outcomes, being that the pipette leaks/sprays fluid. From there, we thought of possible causes of fluid leaking or spraying out of the pipette. These include a broken seal, a crack or hole in the pipette tip or body, or a lack of adhesion between the pipette tip and the fluid.

Our risk analysis fault tree was finalized on 10/30/2022. We continued to think about the risks of our design and created a new category: failure of use. In this category we found there were many things with our design that could potentially go wrong. These include failure of pipette reloader, failure with the pressure system, and also failure with the multiple stops. During this thought process, we easily could come up with more and more cause and effects of what could go wrong in out design. For a more thorough risk analysis, check out our fault tree below.

          Link to our FMEA.