Connecting Design Problem Characteristics to Prototyping Choices to Form a Prototyping Strategy
- Conference
- Location
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Atlanta, Georgia
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2013
- Start Date
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June 23, 2013
- End Date
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June 26, 2013
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Design in Engineering Education
- Page Count
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17
- Page Numbers
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23.330.1 - 23.330.17
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--19344
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/19344
- Download Count
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601
Paper Authors
Bradley Adam Camburn University of Texas, Austin
PhD University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Expected
M.S. University of Texas at Austin, 2010
B.S.M.E Carnegie Mellon University, 2008
Brock U Dunlap University of Texas, Austin
Vimal Kumar Viswanathan
Georgia Institute of Technology
orcid.org/0000-0002-2984-0025
Dr. Vimal Viswanathan is a post-doctoral research associate at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. He completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2012. His research interests are engineering design innovation, creativity and engineering education.
Julie S Linsey Georgia Institute of Technology
Daniel D. Jensen U.S. Air Force Academy
Dr. Dan Jensen is a Professor of Engineering Mechanics at the U.S. Air Force Academy where he has been since 1997. He received his B.S. (Mechanical Engineering), M.S. (Applied Mechanics) and Ph.D. (Aerospace Engineering Science) from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has worked for Texas Instruments, Lockheed Martin, NASA, University of the Pacific, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and MSC Software Corp. His research includes design of Micro Air Vehicles, development of innovative design methodologies and enhancement of engineering education. Dr Jensen has authored approximately 100 papers and has been awarded over $3 million of research grants.
Richard H. Crawford University of Texas, Austin
Dr. Richard H. Crawford is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and is the Temple Foundation Endowed Faculty Fellow No. 3. He is also Director of the Design Projects program in Mechanical Engineering. He received his BSME from Louisiana State University in 1982, and his MSME in 1985 and Ph.D. in 1989, both from Purdue University. He teaches mechanical engineering design and geometry modeling for design. Dr. Crawford’s research interests span topics in computer-aided mechanical design and design theory and methodology. Dr. Crawford is co-founder of the DTEACh program, a ”Design Technology” program for K-12, and is active on the faculty of the UTeachEngineering program that seeks to educate teachers of high school engineering.
Kevin Otto Singapore University of Technology and Design
Kevin Otto is an Associate Professor in the Engineering Product Design Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. He studies robust design of dynamic systems, verification and validation, and system modularity.
Kristin L. Wood Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
Dr. Kristin L. Wood is currently a Professor, Head of Pillar, and co-Director of the International Design
Center (IDC) at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). Dr. Wood completed his
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering (Division of Engineering and Applied Science) at the
California Institute of Technology, where he was an AT&T Bell Laboratories Ph.D. Scholar. Dr. Wood
was formerly a Professor of Mechanical engineering at the University of Texas (1989-2011), where he established a computational and experimental
laboratory for research in engineering design and manufacturing. He was a National Science
Foundation Young Investigator, the Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor in Engineering
and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at The University of Texas at Austin.
Abstract
Connecting Design Problem Characteristics to Prototyping Choices to Form a Prototyping Strategy Abstract Prototyping is a critical part of the product design process with the potential to play a significant role in determining the success or failure of the product. A variety of decisions are made by the design team when determining the manner in which they will develop prototypes. Example decisions include: choosing to develop either multiple prototypes or only a single prototype; and choosing to develop either a scaled or fully functional prototype. We define a prototyping strategy as the compilation of all the decisions that need to be made in order to develop a prototype. Thorough review of the literature on prototyping reveals that there are no comprehensive strategies to guide designers in the development of such a prototyping strategy. In our previous research, we identified what we believe is a comprehensive list of the variables that constitute a prototyping strategy. In addition, we developed some data collection tactics that were intended to provide insight for the designer when creating their prototype strategy. However, the opportunity to provide specific methods for optimizing the suite of variables in the prototyping strategy remained open. In the current research we provide a set of heuristics that can be used directly to create the prototyping strategy. These heuristics are tested using a set of 15 design teams working on their senior undergraduate capstone design. These teams were all provided with the heuristics and training on how to use them. However, teams were allowed to violate the “suggestions” provided by the heuristics. For example, a heuristic might be that if significant resources (time and money) can be saved by development of a dimensionally scaled prototype and if a scaled prototype can be used to verify all the critical design requirements, then a dimensionally scaled prototype should be developed as opposed to a full scale prototype. Assessment involves correlating the specific decisions teams made to either follow or violate each heuristic with a set of measures of the effectiveness of their prototypes. Key metrics for effectiveness of the prototyping strategy are whether teams stayed on schedule, were within budget and if they met key design requirements. Initial assessment data suggests that the prototyping heuristics significantly improve the effectiveness of the prototyping process.
Camburn, B. A., & Dunlap, B. U., & Viswanathan, V. K., & Linsey, J. S., & Jensen, D. D., & Crawford, R. H., & Otto, K., & Wood, K. L. (2013, June), Connecting Design Problem Characteristics to Prototyping Choices to Form a Prototyping Strategy Paper presented at 2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--19344
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