Problem Restatement
Water is widely known to be one of the essential building blocks of
life, making up 50-75% of a human’s body weight (Popkin et al.,
2010). Water is needed for a significant number of processes
throughout the body–everything from homeostasis to digestion
assistance and skin protection. Therefore, it is unsurprising to
hear that a significant amount of water is needed in order to
maintain a healthy lifestyle, and that insufficient water
consumption can quickly become fatal. Knowing this, it is
concerning to learn that 75% of Americans are chronically
dehydrated (Taylor Jones, 2022). The recent rise in caloric
beverage intake has only served to increase the likelihood of
dehydration and the other harmful issues associated with it
(García-Arroyo et al., 2016).
As dehydration was already
an issue, this change makes the problem more alarming. Another
problem is the lack of awareness surrounding ideal water
consumption. Although many people understand the importance of
drinking water, they do not have a good grasp on just how much
water they should be drinking each day (Albasheer et al., 2021).
People often fail to recognize the impact dehydration has on their
bodies until a physical symptom arises. Dehydration is an even
greater concern for the elderly population, particularly those
suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, which could cause them
to forget to drink water throughout the day (Lauriola et al., 2018;
Taylor Jones, 2022).
Approach
Since our group had the advantage of already having a project idea coming into this, the brainstorming part of this process was far simpler for us. We had decided that we would engineer a smart water bottle capable of communicating information with an application to better allow users to track their water intake.
