Objective: The objective of this assignment is to develop an understanding and appreciation for the complexity of the engineering design process, and to experience the thinking processes required by performing a small design project. This is a group project, work in groups of 2-4 students.
Potential projects:
• Develop a device to measure the pressure as a function of depth in water.
• Develop a device to measure temperature
• Develop a device to measure time.
• Develop a device to measure weight.
• To do a different project, you must get instructor approval.
To get full credit, all projects listed above must not use any store bought parts or electronic parts that perform the measurement you are interested in.
The design process that you will formally follow for the purposes of this project is listed below. If you feel the order doesn't match what your group thinks is best, you can adjust accordingly.
1 - Identify the problem/product innovation - your group will choose one of the design projects listed above.
2 - Define the working criteria/goals - based on the project you have chosen, come up with at least 5 decision criteria that you think would be good criteria to judge the final design on. Also put down weights for each criteria that you think seem reasonable. Clearly define what a score for each criteria means.
3 - Research and gather data - gather any background information you think is relevant, if necessary.
4 - Brainstorm/generate creative ideas - hold a formal brainstorming session with your group. The goal is as many ideas as possible, no judgement. Do not get hung up in "solution space", just put the general idea down.
5 - Analyze potential solutions - narrow your ideas down to 2-3 that seem the most promising based on your "engineering judgement". Now is the time to go into more detail on some specifics of certain ideas, if they are potential candidates.
6 - Develop and test models/feasibility - create models for each of your potential solutions. Generate different tests to perform. For the purposed of this project, at least 3 tests need to be performed for each model you are testing. Remember section 3.9 in the book. (Example: you are developing a device to measure time, test each design at 10 seconds, 30 seconds, and 120 seconds) More tests may be prefered depending on your specific situation (60 seconds, 10 minutes, 1 hr... What are your criteria?). Perform the tests and record your results.
7 - Make the decision/evaluation and selection - based on the decision criteria you generated, decide which design to go with. If none of your designs seem to be adequate, try one more design from your brainstorming session before moving on to the communication phase. Additionally, if items came up during testing that made you want to change your decision criteria, this is a reasonable thing to have happen. Be sure to make note of what is changing and why.
8 - Communicate and Specify - Generate a report to sell your idea. Be sure to include the test results of all the models you tested, and why the final model is the one being chosen. To really sell your idea, think about why someone would want to use this product and specify why the final choice meets those criteria.
9 - Implement and commercialize - not for this project
10 - Post-implementation review and assessment - not for this project.