Student Perceptions of an Iterative or Parallel Prototyping Strategy During a Design Competition
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual Conference
- Publication Date
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July 26, 2021
- Start Date
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July 26, 2021
- End Date
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July 19, 2022
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Design in Engineering Education
- Page Count
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16
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--37752
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/37752
- Download Count
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490
Paper Authors
Alexander R. Murphy Georgia Institute of Technology
Alexander Murphy is a graduate candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. He received a B.S. in mechanical engineering with a minor in creative writing from the University of South Florida in 2016. In the Spring of 2018, Alexander received an NSF GRFP fellowship in the area of STEM Education and Learning Research. In graduate school, his research has focused on functional modeling, mental model representations of systems, and prototyping strategies. Alexander aims to become academic faculty in mechanical engineering conducting research on design theory and engineering education.
Danielle M. Saracino Georgia Institute of Technology
Danielle Saracino is a M.S. graduate student in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology under the guidance of Dr. Julie Linsey. Her B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering is also from the Georgia Institute of Technology where she began conducting research and interned with BAE Systems and Pratt and Whitney. Danielle's research interests are how academic makerspaces support student learning and how this compares across various communities.
Beyza Akgun Georgia Institute of Technology
Beyza Akgun is a graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, a minor in Industrial Design, and a concentration in Automotive Engineering in May 2021. During her undergraduate studies, Beyza was involved in Georgia Tech Motorsports, the school's Formula SAE team, research on prototyping in design, and assistantship in a project-based design course. Following graduation, Beyza accepted a full-time offer at Triumph Integrated Systems in Connecticut as a project engineer, and she plans to further continue her education by pursuing graduate school in the future.
Katherine Fu Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Kate Fu is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology with a joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering. Prior to this appointment, she has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). In May 2012, she completed her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 2009, and her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University in 2007. Her work has focused on studying the engineering design process through cognitive studies, and extending those findings to the development of methods and tools to facilitate more effective and inspired design and innovation.
Julie S. Linsey Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Julie S. Linsey is an Associate Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technological. Dr. Linsey received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas. Her research area is design cognition including systematic methods and tools for innovative design with a particular focus on concept generation and design-by-analogy. Her research seeks to understand designers’ cognitive processes with the goal of creating better tools and approaches to enhance engineering design. She has authored over 150 technical publications including over forty journal papers, and ten book chapters.
Abstract
In engineering design, the prototyping process facilitates learning through testing, evaluation, and refinement. Designer perceptions about different approaches to prototyping may reveal how the benefits and limitations of different prototyping strategies manifest. In this paper, student perceptions of iterative and parallel prototyping approaches are examined through an undergraduate design competition. Student participants’ final project reports are analyzed to determine their satisfaction with their assigned prototyping strategy. In addition, themes in participants’ perceptions about the two prototyping approaches are assessed by evaluating their reports for emergent theme categorization. Results show a significant preference towards an iterative approach to prototyping despite better design performance by the parallel approach. Participants also recognize the unique benefits of each strategy. Namely, an iterative approach affords minor changes to a concept whereas a parallel approach facilitates solution space exploration. This work showcases how students perceive the benefits and limitations of iterative and parallel prototyping strategies, informing our understanding of how prototyping strategies can affect the engineering design process.
Murphy, A. R., & Saracino, D. M., & Akgun, B., & Fu, K., & Linsey, J. S. (2021, July), Student Perceptions of an Iterative or Parallel Prototyping Strategy During a Design Competition Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37752
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