Classes: 5th Mech
Date of Assignment 10.2.17
Engineering Design Process and Reverse Engineering Article
EQ(s): What is the value of working together on projects? What is an engineering Design Team?
How did the author suggest making each member of the team have value and importance to the process?
Read the Following Article on Engineering Design:
Date of Assignment 10.2.17
Engineering Design Process and Reverse Engineering Article
EQ(s): What is the value of working together on projects? What is an engineering Design Team?
How did the author suggest making each member of the team have value and importance to the process?
Read the Following Article on Engineering Design:
Simulating Engineering Design
By Stephen Portz
Creating
activities which model engineering design as it may appear in industry is a great
activity for technology students. The simple
art of design is the act of creating an element with special regard to its form
and function. Engineering design is
doing that, but also seeks to bring about a very efficient product with respect
to the purpose of its creation.
Engineering
design work brings together skills of creativity, inventiveness, communication,
teamwork, mind’s eye development, and continuous product improvement, just to
name a few. A typical design team may
consist of engineers, technicians, inspectors, designers, and marketing, financial
and administrative support personnel.
Engineering design teams are at the core of product development in our
nation’s industries, and as such, represent a compelling component to have students
attempt to model in technology programs.
Reverse Engineering
The
difficulty in simulating an activity of this nature is that the skill level of
most students is not either at a level of specialization or competence that it
would distinguish them sufficiently from their peers. How then, can you put a team of specialists
together to model an engineering design team, when everyone has about the same
levels of expertise?
The trick is to work backwards and structure the activity
so that students must function in their designated role. By having a product already constructed, and
then rationing out the information that you give team members, an artificial level
of expertise is created and given to each student.
Individual Roles
A good lead
in to this activity, is take time to explain the traditional roles of each of
the design team members: What kind of work they do? What kind of education and
skills are required? How do pay
structures compare?
I use this
time to discuss different types of degrees, certificates, and experiences which
qualify workers for different industrial positions. How do you determine a living wage and how do
you calculate a yearly wage based on an hourly rate and vice versa?
We organize
students into groups of three or four and have students determine who will serve
which function for the team. Placards
are made and placed in front of each worker so that it is easy to recognized who
is doing what job. The teams are
structured so that each has a project manager, a designer, an engineer, and a
technician. For groups of three, the project manager and the engineer can serve
the same role.
Project Manager
The target project that everyone will be trying to build
is out of sight. The activity begins by
calling all project managers from each team for a conference regarding the
product that is to be built. The product
is introduced at that time and it is explained that as project managers, their
jobs are to interface with corporate headquarters and department administrators
in determining what products your division will produce. It is then a project manager’s job to work
with the design team to help them develop the product with this big idea in
mind.
It is also
the responsibility of the project manager to make sure team members stay busy
and feel they are making important contributions to the team – they are bosses
but they are also cheerleaders to help the team stay focused and mentally healthy. The project manager will see the project more
than any other team member - this simulates their understanding of goals the
company has for the product. It must be
understood that managers direct the other employees, and for this purpose, they
may not build or draw.
The Engineer
Engineers
have intimate knowledge of how things work, mechanical principles, forces, and
an understanding of strengths and properties of materials. For this activity, the engineers of the
groups will be the only team member who will be shown the target project under power.
Specific emphasis will be given to the drive train and the size and
coordination of the gears. The engineer
may demonstrate what parts are being used and how they are arranged, but may
not assemble pieces together, and they may not draw.
The Designer
Designers
are called up next. It is a good idea to
have an area set up so that the designers may stretch out around the target and
spend as much time drawing it as they desire.
Graph paper is provided and it is pointed out to the designers that a
good working drawing is all a technician should need to build a project.
Designers are the only students that may draw, and once they leave the table to
communicate to the team, they may not come back to see the target. They too, are not allowed to build.
The Technician
The
technician is the only design team member that may build - but they are never
allowed to see the project. Since teams
are in competition with each other to assemble the target as soon as possible,
you must guard against espionage because it can be a problem. We put up cardboard project boards (science
fair type), so that teams may work in secrecy and so that progress toward the
objective remains focused on the team’s efforts and not on others’. A modeling
kit which was used to create the target project is provided each team. While the team members, who can view the
project, are at work, the technicians keep themselves busy by inventorying and getting
acquainted with the kit.
If classes
are having a hard time working under these constraints, it may be necessary to
allow all engineers to have another peek.
As the project nears completion and is being fine tuned by teams, an
open shop where project managers can come and go at will to the target project
works well.
Evaluation
The logical conclusion to this
activity is to determine how long it takes groups to finish, and rank order
them in this way. A team is finished
when the target project is functionally correct, as variations of the design
may occur and not affect its workings. An instructor would have to determine
how esthetically picky they wanted to be with the time allotted. Some teams have even taken the project
further and improved upon the original design.
It is also interesting to store all iterations of the target project to
show at one time to demonstrate to students the varied ways the problem was
solved.
It is
important to not just measure student performance by speed of completion alone,
although this can be an accurate measurement of how well the team and each
member performed. In a post activity
survey, the students are asked to identify difficulties encountered, and group
dynamics: What aspect(s) of the problem
was the most difficult and why? What
could the team have done better to be successful? If you were given an assignment similar to
this again what would you do differently?
Before
having students complete the survey, make sure to emphasize that effective problem
solving concentrates on methods and strategies and not on personnel. In this way, the survey does not become a
blame game where students come away with the impression that the success of the
team was based on who they had doing what, but more on working together and
personal best efforts. If on the survey,
students impress with good reflection of the activity and by demonstrating they
understand the team concept, they have captured the point of the lesson, and
that should also carry a lot of weight in the final evaluation.
Conclusion
Engineering
Design concepts can easily be taught in this manner as an intro to basic
engineering skills development in an engineering specific course; It could also
be used as a lesson within an integrated technologies course to give students a
taste of what the engineering world is like.
Stephen Portz, M.Ed., NBCT, teaches
engineering technology at Space Coast Jr./Sr. High School, Cocoa, Florida
Comments
Post a Comment