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Written by Avery: Presenting at the forum was a very fun experience. There were so many different ideas being displayed and many of them were interactive displays, which was fun to look at and have a better understanding of the groups ideas/ solutions. It was great because the parents went to each booth and left thoughtful responses. Even many students really engaged with our booth and asked questions that had a lot of thought put into them. The parents took a lot of pictures and really seemed amazed at what we thought was a simple idea. Many encouraged us to sell these to bakeries and go on Shark Tank,which made us very excited to see that our idea was. So we presented our dog treats that we made a few weeks ago. Using all natural ingredients helping the dogs, we were able to finish our project and actually be able to test in on a dog. The dog treats were given to Lola’s dog, and it actually displayed a positive outcome. Her dog was able to get up the stairs faster, which means we were on the right track to a very good solution to arthritis. We also gave these to some of the dogs we know that didn’t have arthritis, but we wanted to see if they were really good and a dog would eat things like kale, apples, flax seed, and sweet potatoes. We were all very glad we took a lot of data because mostly everyone that stopped by asked us about this data. Luckily all of the dogs loved them and wanted more. As a group, we learned many things during this project. We learned that it is okay to change your idea because it will lead to a very great outcome. We also learned that a lot of research is worth it because it makes sure everything is safe. This step really helped us when we were researching things dogs can eat and came across essential oils. At first we thought this was great but later found out they aren’t the best for dogs. Another thing that everyone asked us about was the ingredients, so we were relieved we did that research. The last thing we learned was that so many people have dogs with arthritis. Many people came up to our booth and told us they have or know of a dog suffering with arthritis. This really showed how much 20 percent was out of the United States with dogs that have arthritis. It seemed like such a small number to us, but after having multiple pet owners tell us their dog had joint pains, we quickly realized what that number really meant. 
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Written by Teagan: Our final product is to make dog treats called Sniblets! These dog treats are made with anti-inflammatory foods such as kale, cinnamon, apple, sweet potatoes, peanut butter, and glucosamine and chondrotin. These treats are homemade and are tasty to both dogs and people (yes, I said people). Because there is no definite way to know whether or not these treats will help dogs with arthritis unless we had several more weeks to test them, we made sure that they were tasty and enjoyable. We did try to time our dogs getting up the stairs, going on longer walks, and running for longer time periods. If I could change one thing to increase our impact, I would create something other than food that help dogs with arthritis. I would also want to have more time to create a prototype. Sniblets were very fun to make, but I feel that something even more specific than dog treats would be a better fit for dogs with arthritis. So far, the feedback that we have received has mostly been about the same thing. At first, we wanted to make dog treats with essential oils in them. Thanks to everyone who gave us feedback, we decided to dive deeper into research. This idea was no longer useful once we realized that essential oils are not good for dogs to consume (especially in their food). After this, we scrambled to find feedback for our next idea: dog treats with anti-inflammatory foods. Luckily we spent time researching what foods were anti-inflammatory and safe for dogs to eat before we pitched our idea to several people. As a result of this, the majority of the feedback we got was based upon how we would know if the treats would make a difference in the dog’s mobility. This is only something we could test if we had months to conduct their effectiveness.  Written by Lola: |
