Portfolio for Rapid Prototyping of Virtual and Physical Systems

1
Portfolio for Rapid Prototyping of Virtual and
Physical Systems

• Monica S. Ullagaddi
• Revd May 12, 2001
• Section A

2
Outline of Portfolio

• Section I Projects
• Section II Exercises
• Section III In-class Activities
• Section IV Presentation and Group Work
• Section V Computer Labs
• Section VI Assessments

3
Section I - Projects

• Toy Concepts
• Manufactured Assembly
• Engineering Outreach Activity

4
Graphics of Toy Concepts - 1http//www.cs.cmu.edu
/rapidproto/students/msu/project1/concept1.htm
5
Graphics of Toy Concepts - 2http//www.cs.cmu.edu
/rapidproto/students/msu/project1/concept2.htm
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Graphic of Toy Concepts - 3http//www.cs.cmu.edu/
rapidproto/students/msu/project1/concept3.htm
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What I Learned

• What I learned
• Designing a product with a special audience in
  mind
• Designing this product so that it will satisfy
  those constraints
• It is difficult to design a product for a special
  audience that you do not belong to, especially
  because you yourself cannot empathize with their
  situation, rather you can only sympathize.
• Constraining a concept by audience, age, and
  education level means that the objective of the
  toy may not be the attraction of the toy other
  manufactured parts of the toy may be what makes
  it interesting to people

8
How I Learned it and Its Importance to Me

• How I learned it
• When I tried looking at other toys on the market
  that fit the 9-10 year old range, I realized a
  lot of them had more complex objectives than toys
  designed for a younger group, but they were a lot
  less colorful and had a lot fewer moving parts
• Looking at the presentations of my classmates, I
  could see that my classmates had interpreted the
  age group differently, and had sought inspiration
  from many different places. I particularly
  sought inspiration from my childhood toys,
  whereas others had sought inspiration from
  television, current toys, toys that are
  ageless, etc.
• This is important to me
• A product may appear great in my eyes, but in
  order for it to be received well, it has to
  reflect the interests of the stakeholders first
  and foremost. This is something I am sure I will
  encounter in the work force someday.

9
Manufactured Assembly
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Lasercamm - Investigated Process

• A DXF file generated from a CAD program is
  imported into the Windows 95-based user software
• It is then converted to a DMC file that is read
  by the machine
• Once the file is downloaded, the material put in
  place and the focus set, its just a matter of
  pushing a button and watching the laser do its
  job

11
Shape Limitations - Lasercamm

• 2-Dimensional shapes
• Thickness varies with material
• 3-Dimensional models (2 methods)
• A series of cross sections may be cut and glued
  together, in much the same way as the paper
  lamination method
• A series of cross sections may be cut and
  assembled in a latice of 90 degree intersecting
  planes
• Intricacy of designs are governed by material
• Although process exerts no force on small edges,
  flash point of material comes into play

12
Size Limitations - Lasercamm

• Size Limitations
• Size of each cross section is governed by model
  of machine
• Maximum of 25 inches by 52 inches
• Models may be subdivided into parts that can be
  intersected to form larger models
• Other Limitations
• Cannot cut metal
• Cannot cut paper
• Only Two-Dimensional
• Three-Dimensional model making capability is only
  for models, not strong enough for production.

13
Production Costs - Lasercamm

• Mailing Costs for parts from Stanford University
  in California to Pittsburgh.
• Express Mail would run about 16.00 for our part
• No mailing cost from here to there, since part
  Data Can be sent over the internet
• Cost of material Clear Acrylic
• Average Cost for online vendors for low volume
  3.00 per sq foot
• No Tooling costs, since laser never wears out
• No Technician salary costs, since Machine is very
  low-maintenance
• Very low training costs, because of ease of use
  of software and machine

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What I Learned

• In this project, our group had to manufacture a
  plexi-glass view plate for an entire assembly
• What I learned
• Part must be exactly to specification to fit
  other parts and combine as a whole
• Investigated process may not be the one used to
  manufacture the part, and the process conversion
  from the CAD drawings to machine is the most
  difficult step in the process. The most
  debugging lies in this step
• Simply because you follow the CAD drawing
  specifications, does not mean the part will turn
  out the way you want it to, sometimes it takes
  several tries the physical world is always more
  difficult to deal with than on a CAD drawing

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How I Learned It

• How I learned it
• We did not end up using the process that we chose
  to investigate
• It also took several tries to create our
  manufactured view plate
• Based on the information from many other groups,
  it seemed that information about these
  manufacturing processes was difficult to obtain
  and in addition, once the process had begun,
  information was difficult to keep in constant
  flow
• Division of labor in this project was a little
  difficult in addition, because one person
  generally ended up manufacturing the part
  (physically doing the process) and one person
  generally ended up doing the research,
  presentation, and written work

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Importance of What I Learned

• Learning about the manufacture of physical
  prototypes taught me about the quality control
  process and how quality checks must exist at
  every single checkpoint to prevent waste
• I also learned that the integration of systems,
  products, and processes involves a concerted
  effort with a fair amount of knowledge
  concentrated in one person or organization.
• Knowledge management is as important if not more
  important than knowledge acquisition. How a
  person or organization uses the information they
  have to coordinate the efforts of several people
  is fundamental to the seamless integration of
  several parts
• Operations research is a very important part of
  the prototyping/engineering process. If what you
  are about to do has already been done, then you
  should find out how it has been done to make your
  job easier

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Engineering Outreach Project

• Objective - to design a project that teaches some
  engineering idea to children between the ages of
  9 and 12
• Must include a take-home component
• Must keep them engaged for class period
• Must be able to work simultaneously
• Must have the theme of movies or film industry

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Engineering Outreach Specshttp//chesterkdr.res.c
mu.edu/rpdportfolio/engoutreach/engoutreachdesc.ht
m

• Our prototype was a light box
• Our Classroom Activity
• Components of White, Laser, and Black Light
• Why we see colors the way we do
• Shadows and Transmission of Light
• Our Take Home Activity
• The speed of light in different media
• Supplemental Activity - application of Snells
  Law

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What I Learned

• To teach anyone, particularly children, anything,
  you must be completely explicit and have plenty
  of diagrams
• Children often dont think of things the way that
  adults specify them in directions. Adults write
  directions knowing the answers, children answer
  the questions without having any such bias.
• This can become difficult to teach certain
  concepts about light that are completely based on
  observation
• To teach children a concept through their own
  observation, you need to be sure that children
  observe exactly what you want them to see,
• This means that there must be exacting standards
  applied to the equipment children use to learn
  concepts with
• The fewer bells and whistles in a science
  experiment the better. Often times, children
  become fascinated with the aesthetics that they
  dont concentrate on the concepts

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What I Learned contd.

• Several testers tested our project. Although the
  children were younger than our target audience,
  they showed us several things
• The more nervous we became, and the more we
  talked, the less they listened
• The children needed concrete roles and tasks to
  complete the experiment. Simply asking them to
  play with the equipment will produce very little
  fruitful experimentation or learning
• The children were only entertained by our
  project for as long as they could turn a few
  lights on and off. However, when they were able
  to combine information they learned from our
  experiment with information in the everyday
  world, they became excited

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How I Learned It

• First in-class test
• During this test, we learned that combining
  different colored filters over one light did not
  produce white light in the manner that we had
  expected. Rather, we had to combine different
  colored lights to produce white light
• Professor Finger
• Prof. Finger had the most valuable suggestions
  about what children would pay attention to, what
  they could understand, and helped us come up with
  ways to simplify our directions. The playing
  with food activity we did in class also helped us
  simplify our project
• Project Testers
• Take our Daughters to Work Day, Moving 4th, Role
  Models

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Project Testers

• Take our Daughters to Work Day
• Showed us that some parts of our experiment may
  have been to elementary to include in our
  directions. However, we designated those parts
  of the student directions sheet as meant for much
  younger and children. Thus, our directions sheet
  is adaptable for ages 8-12.
• Role Models
• From this session of testing, we learned that
  children will not always give us the answer we
  want to hear. We learned how to lead children to
  give us the answer that we were looking for. We
  also learned how to talk to children which is
  quite different from talking to adults!

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Pictures of Project Testers
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Importance of What I Learned

• Communication is not just speaking
• As engineers, we will always have to communicate
  with different audiences, technical and
  non-technical, and it is important to know how to
  communicate effectively with them.
• Teaching
• Teaching someone something you already know is an
  extremely difficult task. One must make several
  iterations through the testing process to know
  what they are trying to teach is being learned.
  In addition, it also helps to know they exact
  type of audience expected.
• If the exact type of audience is unknown, then
  directions, instructions, teaching, or
  presentation materials need to be adaptable to
  all age groups and skill levels. This may be
  achieved through using optional or supplementary
  instructions, etc.

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Section II - Exercises

• Role Mole
• Garfields Six-Pack Holder
• Green Acres Egg Carrier

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Role Mole

• Design a method for Role Mole to keep track of
  his glasses
• Must be fashionable
• Must be not require clothing unless it is
  provided
• Objective is to keep Role Mole from losing his
  glasses

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What I Learned

• Language of directions has a lot to do with a
  persons interpretation of an assignment.
• The neater the language the more constrained the
  assignment ends up. Thus, I learned that it is
  very important to express yourself very clearly
  unless you want to leave room for interpretation
• Requirements were interpreted in many different
  ways
• some designs were made to find lost glasses
• some designs were innovative ways to hold glasses
  on the body
• some designs were actually glasses built into
  hats, watches, or other utilitarian items worn on
  the body

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How I Learned It

• Classmates Presentations
• The different ways in which the assignment was
  interpreted was interesting.
• The inspiration behind some of these creations
  helped fuel my ideas for exercises in the future.
  For example, a lot of people had mentioned
  commercials or infommercials as a source of their
  inspiration. Many of my future ideas were
  inspired by classmates designs, improvements to
  classmates designs, etc.

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Importance of What I Learned

• Design Process
• I had to think about the transition from
  requirements, inspiration, prototype, and
  presentation
• It is important to detail the goals each step and
  how they will interconnect before attempting to
  jump straight into prototyping. Simply
  prototyping will probably end up taking more time
  if certain requirements are forgotten, not met,
  etc.
• The design process is very important to spend
  time on and think about critically. This will
  probably be of importance to me in the near
  future, since I will be designing large programs
  with many stringent requirements. Starting over
  from the beginning will probably be very
  time-consuming and costly, and such an
  inefficiency cannot be afforded.

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Garfields Six-Pack Holder

• Build a holder for six cans of soda
• Requirements
• must be held in one hand
• must be made out of cardboard only
• must be able to swing in any direction
• holder must be easy to load
• must use as little cardboard as possible
• must be aesthetically pleasing

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What I Learned

• What I learned
• Measurements must be precise in order to hold
  cans in place
• Cans must counterbalance each other because
  cardboard is not strong enough to hold them all
• Using the most cardboard doesnt always mean the
  design will be the most stable
• Innovative designs are often more durable than
  safe designs people who come up with
  innovative designs often experiment, whereas
  people who come up with safe designs simply
  assume they will work
• Many designs were not tested because designers
  were afraid their designs would fail under
  stress. In actuality, if they design failed
  during a test session, then the design would be
  inadequate anyway. Thus, testing is a very
  important part of the design process

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How I Learned It Its Importance

• I learned that testing is a very important part
  of the design process, from my classmates. Most
  of their designs did not work, because they did
  not bother to test their designs
• Based on in-class testing, it seemed that a lot
  of designs looked like they could hold the
  necessary weight, but ended up buckling after one
  or two swings
• More is not always better
• More cardboard did not always mean a better
  design. Thus, it is important to be innovative,
  and consider many options and alternatives,
  rather than one that appears to work right away.
• This will have importance to me in my career, as
  it will help me make more informed decisions
  about design options in the future

33
Green Acres Egg Carrier

• Requirements
• Design a carrier for three eggs
• Carrier must protect eggs from a drop height of
  five feet
• Egg carrier must minimize cost
• Egg carrier must minimize environmental impact
• Egg carrier must appeal aesthetically to Green
  Acre's customers

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What I Learned

• I learned
• Reduce, Re-use, Recycle strategy in Green Design
• Based on the specific application, reduction of
  waste, re-use of materials, or recycling of
  materials may take precedence.
• I learned that certain materials, like yard
  waste, are the biggest contributors to waste in
  the United States. From certain presentations, I
  learned that using waste to create a product can
  be part of the re-use strategy in Green Design
• Although Green Design strategies will have little
  impact in my career as an electrical engineer,
  the overall tenets of reduce, re-use and recycle
  can apply to the design process for any
  engineering or manufactured product

35
Section III In-Class Activities

• Design/Build Takes 1 2
• Silly Consumer Products
• Egg Drop
• MBTI (personality test)
• Playing With Food

36
Design Build Take One

• What I learned
• It is very difficult to describe yourself well
  enough in words for others to understand, a
  picture is worth a thousand words
• Even if you understand your words, they may be
  interpreted differently by different people
• Sometimes, following directions closely may not
  be the best idea if you know the design will not
  work
• An optimal strategy would be to start writing out
  the directions and then modify them as the
  designing team attempts to build part or all of
  the design
• Our team simply drew the design and then wrote
  directions. We did not experiment/test with the
  newspaper

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What and How I Learned

• Newspaper cannot stand a lot of torsion stress,
  but can stand compressive and tensile stress
• The strength drops off dramatically with the
  introduction of bends and kinks
• Uniformity in the size of newspaper columns was
  very important for the columns to interconnect
  properly
• Any design where all the points were not
  contained in one plane was most likely doomed to
  failure

• The triangular extruded design could not even
  support the weight of one sheet of newspaper
• One tiny fold in a leg of the pyramid could cause
  the whole thing to come crashing down
• Since we did not roll the newspaper around
  something, they were all different lengths and
  did not fit together
• None of the cubical structures stood, and if they
  did, they used excessive amounts of newspaper

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Design/Build Pictures
39
Design Build Take Two

• Based on our failures of building the first
  structure,
• We were determined to make the second one work,
  employing the more is better strategy, although
  not completely disregarding the instruction of
  the design team
• All of us had the same idea for design, the
  four-sided pyramid
• This design worked the best during Design/Build
  1, and was the most stable
• We chose to optimize stability rather than
  anything else since it gave us the most points
• Our design did not require a lot of newspaper,
  but versatility was built into our directions so
  that more could be added in case the design was
  not stable

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What and How I Learned

• Uniformity
• Plays a key role in the design process. The
  second time around we rolled the newspaper legs
  around a marker so that they were all the same
  diameter
• Structural Integrity
• In order to protect against unnecessary bends and
  kinks in the newspaper, we planned exactly what
  we were going to do before we did it
• We decided to follow the design team
  instructions, since, they were almost exactly the
  instructions we came up with ourselves
• We decided not to go with the more newspaper is
  better strategy, because we knew from previous
  experience that this design works and we did not
  have to reinforce any of the walls
• Build Team for our Design
• Had also designed a similar structure, so they
  had no trouble building ours

41
Design Build Pictures
42
Silly Consumer Products

• Objective - To create the silliest product
  possible
• Our Product - A shoe made for two feet, with
  built-in socks and a sundial with indiglo
• This product was ranked second in the class

A shoe
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What and How I Learned

• Again, interpretation of silly was different
  among different groups
• Some groups took silly to mean useless, funny,
  dangerous, etc.
• Based on the particular definition that most
  groups chose, the winning product was chosen
• Aside from interpretation, the question of what
  sort of product would be created existed
• Food, Basic Necessities, and Household Items were
  the most commonly designed items

• Among the products created
• Asbestos-lined comforter with barbed wire
• Spray-on leaves
• President-shaped hamburger patties
• It is easier to make basic necessities that
  everyone has to and does use on a regular basis
• Luxury items are more scarce and are pretty
  ridiculous as they come, so that was not really
  an option

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What I Learned

• The same way the person who takes a test to
  purposely get every single answer wrong, they
  really have to know every single correct answer
• To create such a product it also takes a bit of
  intelligence to know what is completely
  unnecessary to all people
• products that were silly
• products that made tasks more difficult
• products that were dangerous
• products that were useless

45
Egg Drop

• Objectives
• Drop an egg out of a two-story window
• Prevent egg from cracking
• Hit target with egg carrier
• Minimize cost of egg carrier in terms of
  materials
• Make egg carrier aesthetically pleasing

46
What I Learned

• With so many conflicting objectives, it is
  difficult to fulfill all the requirements
• Although each person was assigned to a specific
  constraint to optimize, we ended up working
  together as a team
• We probably should have gone about have the
  materials engineer deciding the materials to use
• The structural engineer then building the egg
  carrier
• The industrial engineer making the carrier as
  aesthetically pleasing as possible while
  considering a method to throw the egg out the
  window

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What I Learned contd

• Rather than simply brainstorming together
• We should have come up with individual goals that
  satisfied each of the constraints and then
  brought those together
• In an actual engineering design team, if the
  strategy we used was employed, there would be
  utter and complete chaos
• Perhaps an integration engineer or systems
  engineer should be added to the list of engineers
  on the design steam so he or she could combine
  all the constraints and goals and information
  that each engineer came up with into a cohesive
  product or process
• A systems engineer has to have a good deal of
  knowledge about every major aspect of the design
  process or team, or else he or she cannot perform
  their job very well

48
How I Learned

• Based on the fact that my team did not really
  split up roles, and just came up with several
  ideas
• The idea that seemed the most innovative was
  implemented
• Since there was no testing in this activity, it
  was difficult to tell whether the idea would work
  or not
• We also learned that to protect the integrity of
  the egg, cost will not be minimized since we were
  dropping the egg from such a great height
• If the egg was able to touch one of the sides of
  the carrier without being adequately cushioned,
  there was no chance that it would not crack
• Hitting the target was easier if the carrier was
  heavier, however a heavier carrier meant the
  impact with the ground would be greater thus
  the conflicting objectives

49
Meyers-Briggs Personality Test

• Based on a series of questions, a subject can be
  placed into one of sixteen categories
• Introverted or Extroverted
• Sensing or
• Thinking or Feeling
• Perception or Judgment
• My Meyers-Briggs type has always borderline for
  each of the categories
• However, I do have a slight preference for an ENFP

50
What I Learned

• Although I have taken this test before,
• It is always interesting to see how teachers
  interpret different responses, and how groups are
  formed based on whether a person is an North,
  South, East, or West
• An equal distribution of different personality
  types may be useful in an actual design team, so
  that different tasks get fulfilled according to a
  persons interests or expertise, however
• For coursework, students tend to all work on
  every piece of the project together, rather than
  dividing up the work and doing it separately
• In actuality, because of the more inefficient way
  that we ended up working, having so many
  different personality types in our groups was a
  hindrance because we ended up having many
  differences of opinion which took awhile to
  resolve
• Group dynamics often depends an the personality
  of the person work, not necessarily what the task
  is

51
What I Learned contd.

• The greatest separation among people was
  introverted vs. extroverted
• Probably because this is the most readily
  observable characteristic of a person
• As usual, the introverts dont usual have much to
  say in group meetings, and thus, sometimes dont
  always have much of a contribution to make
• This changes in the work force as there are more
  procedures for working in a design team, whereas
  it is a little bit of a free-for-all in school
• Based on the groups we formed
• I found that I was more compatible with
  extroverts rather than introverts, because I am
  not the type of person to seek a persons input
  if they are not readily willing to supply it
• Some projects lent themselves more to interaction
  between different types of people. In specific,
  projects that required out of class meetings, and
  extra time were probably the most impacted by
  having people of different personality types in
  them

52
Importance of What I Learned

• Since I know what personality type I am, I will
  be able to better understand what I can
  contribute to groups
• Where my strengths and weaknesses lie
• Who I can best get along with and work best with,
  and how I can begin to attempt to work with
  people I do not get along with
• The design team requires all sorts of
  personalities to effectively, efficiently, and
  innovatively complete a task

53
Playing with Food

• Objective to learn about different science or
  engineering properties and concerns by making
  food, sometimes edible
• Chocolate Asphalt
• Gummy Bears/Worms
• Ice Cream

54
What I Learned

• Especially for chocolate asphalt, I learned that
  children learn best often through something they
  find appealing to eat
• Each step of the recipe corresponded to a
  different step in the mixing of asphalt or
  concrete
• The aggregate was the coconut, nuts, chocolate,
  etc.
• The polymer was the melted chocolate
• Having each step in the process of making the
  chocolate correspond to some step of making
  asphalt could put the science in the childrens
  hands, making it come alive for them
• Although the steps were fairly representative,
  they did not actually hold any scientific
  significance in their own right. Sometimes a
  representation is better than the actual
  experiment
• Children learn through analogy

55
Importance of What I Learned

• This activity useful to me because
• Prepared me for what to expect with our child
  testers for the engineering outreach project
• Helped me create better instructions and
  directions for students for the outreach project

56
Section IV Presentations and Group Work

• Viewing Classmates Presentations
• Self-Critique
• Overall Presentation Practices
• Part I - Evaluation of Product
• Part II - Evaluation of Presentation
• Viewing the CD-ROM
• Group Work

57
Viewing Other Classmates Presentation

• What I learned
• Watching other peoples presentations before I
  gave mine made me focus on what mistakes not to
  make before giving my own
• Did not necessarily focus on the positive aspects
  of any particular presentation, so I ended up
  concentrating too hard on what not to do
• Classmates presentations gave me inspiration for
  future presentations and products and processes
• How I learned it
• I was particularly surprised by some of the
  products and some of the impetus behind some of
  my classmates ideas. Two of the most creative
  ideas included the Green Acres egg carrier made
  out of baked grass, and the Role Mole glasses
  styled in the form of a bow-tie. Dominic Muren
  presented both of these products
• Listening to Professor Fingers critiques of
  every project also reminded me of what our
  stakeholder was looking for in every project.

58
Self-Critiques

• What I learned
• To present your product in a positive light no
  matter what, not to act apologetic
• Use clear wording and communicate to your
  audience, not talk at them
• Use the product as a prop or item to explain, not
  necessarily a centerpiece
• Forces once to objectively evaluate their own
  work
• If you evaluate your work unjustly, there is
  always your CD to prove you wrong
• Self-critique gives impetus to plan talk out
  ahead of time rather than simply winging it
• People who really practiced their presentations
  appeared to get even more nervous and do a worse
  job
• People who did not practice their presentations
  did not cover all the points necessary to cover
• Optimal solution, have a note card with a
  bulleted list of items to cover in talk, but
  dont write out exact voice track

59
Viewing CD-ROM

• What I learned
• My presentation behavior and habits through
  watching myself on the CD-ROM and then having to
  objectively evaluate myself
• How I learned it
• There is no way that you will ever know what you
  are doing until you see it through another
  persons eyes
• This is important
• I now know what types of behavior to watch for,
  for example, weaknesses and strengths in my
  presentation behavior
• Based on these weaknesses and strengths, I will
  be able to tailor future presentations around
  these issues
• This is will definitely benefit me in future
  presentations as I will be able to more
  effectively communicate with my audience. When
  people are more focused on presentation behavior
  rather than presentation material, they often
  miss the overall picture

60
Group Work

• Division of Labor is particularly hard to achieve
• I learned this from the Manufacturing Project,
  the Engineering Outreach Project, and from
  Design/Build Take 2
• I learned this because
• Groups of three almost always have dead weight.
  The work in these projects can most optimally be
  done by two people
• One persons idea sometimes becomes the
  centerpiece of the project, and sometimes these
  people are difficult to reason with since we are
  working with their idea
• Getting people to volunteer for certain parts of
  the project that may appear more unfavorable is
  difficult. Generally, I just ended up taking
  those parts

• Importance to Me
• This is important to me because I learned what
  role I tend to take in a group
• I generally tend to be the group leader, come up
  with the ideas, and hand off the physical or
  prototyping part to other group members
• To be able to be more versatile, I need to be
  able to be a better follower as well. It is
  difficult for me to not be a leader, something I
  learned this semester however, this may not
  always be the best way to go, especially if I
  dont have the best ideas about how to go about a
  specific topic, or if I dont have the resources
  to contribute to the task
• The people who are most able to contribute
  resources should have the largest commitment and
  stake in the project

61
Section V Computer Labs

• Creating Web Pages
• IronCAD Lab One
• IronCAD Lab Two

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Creating Web Pages

• Designing Interface is Important
• A web page is meant to be more graphical and
  interactive than a paper, so too many words make
  it difficult to understand
• Graphics are important, but only if they relate,
  are well-labeled, well-placed, and easy to
  decipher
• Labeling roll-over images, making sure all links
  work, and citing all the references you use in
  your web page is very important
• Making a web page is just like a paper, it is
  still plagiarism to take someone elses work
  without citing it
• Web pages take up a lot less space then MS
  Powerpoint presentations, etc., and is generally
  a much better medium to make information
  universal to all
• Universal Information Provider
• The Internet is available to everyone, so your
  web page is available to everyone, thus, if you
  intend the web page for everyone, you should make
  sure your content is suitable for everyone
• Using a web authoring product like Dreamweaver is
  a lot easier than using HTML tags to make a page,
  however, it takes away a lot of the options that
  you would have otherwise

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Screen Shotshttp//www.cs.cmu.edu/rapidproto/stu
dents/msu/project1/concept1.htm
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Screen Shotshttp//www.cs.cmu.edu/rapidproto/stu
dents/msu/project1/concept2.htm
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Screen Shotshttp//www.cs.cmu.edu/rapidproto/stu
dents/msu/project1/concept3.htm
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What I Learned

• Aside from learning how to create web pages,
• I learned that I have a tendency to jump straight
  into a project without planning it all the way
  through
• It took me a long time to complete my web pages,
  partially because I was unfamiliar with
  Dreamweaver, but also partially because I sat
  down at a computer and started typing
• It took several tries to get my web page up and
  running, but eventually after help from Prof.
  Finger, it worked
• Planning out a web page project in MS Visio would
  help having an organized and planned out project
• This would make the project easier for people to
  understand
• This would probably make the project easier to
  design as well

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IronCAD Labs One and Two

• Although it is fairly obvious what I learned from
  these labs, they were particularly useful for
• The completion of the Part Manufacturing Project
• Having these skills is particularly important to
  a career and being versatile
• It is very important to follow directions
  closely, however
• Experimentation is the quickest way to get
  familiar with software
• IronCAD is difficult to use since it is
  three-dimensional, it is very different from
  AutoCAD

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Section VI - Assesments

• Design Essay (initial and final)
• Jornada Experiments
• Reflections

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Design Essay - beginning

• The design essay - beginning of the semester
• I learned how to pull together all the
  information I learned in other classes and
  present it for the purposes of this class
• Applying the information
• Using standard terminology stakeholders,
  optimal, products, processes, system, clients,
  etc. Using this terminology helps you claim
  yourself s a person who has some sort of
  understanding of the topic
• Defining terminology in order to reach a specific
  audience and to reach all audiences helps set the
  idea off on common ground for everyone
• I learned this because
• I had someone read my essay. I thought it would
  be interesting to see if my essay was on a
  different level from the other essays since I had
  already taken another Engineering Design course
• I had some feedback from this person about
  needing to define my terminology. Aside from the
  terminology, my essay contained no special
  ideas or concepts that the average person who had
  not taken a course in Engineering Design could
  not have written about

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Design Essay final

• The design essay - end of the semester
• Since I did this after completing my portfolio, I
  had already taken the time to reflect on what I
  had learned throughout the semester. This helped
  me pull together all that I had learned and
  present it in my essay.
• Products, Processes, Group work, Testing, etc.
• There were many new ideas and concepts that I
  wanted to include in my design essay, so I think
  it had more density than my first essay,
  although, it may not have been as long
• It is not always enough to learn something or to
  know something. In order to make your knowledge
  useful, you have to be able to apply it and to
  reflect on it
• We did the problem sets all semester long, but,
  the biggest grade comes from the projects and the
  tests

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How I Learned

• I learned more about how to design an science or
  engineering based experiment for children from
  the Engineering Outreach Project
• Given the reactions and answers from student
  testers, I was able to better formulate my
  solutions for a specific audience
• I was also able to use my experiences from group
  work to decide the division of labor within the
  engineering design team
• In addition, I was able to use my experiences
  with the exercises to formulate a plan for the
  design process so that I would be able to meet
  all the requirements of the stakeholders
• I thought more about testing this time around
  since, I had experience with the Green Acres Egg
  Carrier, the Egg Drop,and the Garfield Six-Pack
  Holder
• I was better able to gather ideas and concepts,
  as well as ways not to do things through the
  experiences I had throughout the semester in
  Rapid Prototyping of Physical and Virtual Systems

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Jornada Experiments

• Objective
• To find as many useful websites on Design in
  Engineering without any duplications while
  communicating through the Jornada
• Point system allocated for good websites, hints
  to find good websites, and duplicate hits

• Both people chose to use different search engines
  so their hits on Design in Engineering would
  not be exactly the same (ie. Yahoo, Google, etc.)
• Although many methods of communication were
  available to them (ICQ, AOL Chat, zephyr, etc.),
  they chose to use Aol Instant Messenger
• After Instant messaging back and forth the URLs
  they found, they cut and pasted their list into a
  notepad file and removed duplicate entries

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What I Learned

• Using AIM
• Not so that they could check which entries
  already existed, but rather to have all entries
  in one file
• They ended up not having many duplicate entries,
  so any other method of checking for duplicate
  entries would not have been all that important
• This method seemed to produce results with the
  fewest negative points
• Had there been no time allotted at the beginning
  of the experiment, they would not have known each
  others screen names, and thus, this experiment
  may not have been possible
• E-mailing would not have worked because it would
  have taken longer for the results to reach person
  than it would to message them

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Reflections

• Based on this portfolio
• It is important to examine what you are doing to
  determine why you are doing it and what you will
  eventually learn from it
• I was able to learn a lot of life lessons and
  skills that will be important in my life and
  career in the future
• I also learned that although some of these
  projects and exercises seem simple on the
  exterior, there are many underlying principles
  that are illuminated when you take the time to
  reflect on the objectives and goals of the
  activity as a whole
• The most important things that I learned that I
  had not known that well before had to do with
• Division of Labor
• Testing Products and Processes to ensure Quality
• Presentation Behavior
• Formulating a plan of action for the Design
  Process
• Children and their Learning Behavior

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What I Learned and How

• Division of Labor
• From Outreach Project and Manufacturing Part
  Project
• Testing Products and Processes
• From Garfield Six-Pack Holder, Green Acres Egg
  Carrier, and Egg Drop Activity
• Presentation Behavior
• From Meyers-Briggs Test, Self-Critiques, and
  viewing CD-ROM
• Formulating a Plan for Designing Products and
  Processes
• From Garfield Six-Pack Holder Exercise, Egg Drop
  Activity, Jornada experiments, and other in-class
  Activities
• Children and their Learning Behavior
• Outreach Project, Child Testers, and Playing with
  Food

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Importance of What I Learned

• This will directly apply to my internship this
  summer, since I will be writing programs to
  control the behavior of satellites
• Modularization and Encapsulation of programs
  requires good division of labor
• Specifically, all parts of the program must fit
  together as a whole, there is no tolerance for
  incompatible pieces
• One person cannot write hundreds of pages of
  code, division of labor must be established so
  that those with available resources (time,
  experience, etc.) can contribute accordingly
• Testing C programs, no room for error
• Cannot send satellites into incorrect orbit, or
  they will be completely useless for data
  gathering or information processing applications
  or they can also become dangerous
• Testing each module separately is important, so
  that unexpected and unaccounted for behavior is
  not encountered when two or more modules are
  combined
• Sometimes modules may appear to be working in
  tandem, but in reality there is an error at a
  lower level that may go undetected because it is
  so hard to find an error when there are several
  layers to dig through

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Importance of What I Learned

• Presentation Behavior
• Concentrating on presentation style is important
  to ensuring that you are communicating and not
  simply presenting
• Communication ensures that your ideas will be
  understood, rather than simply being seen and
  heard
• This is particularly important when you are
  trying to teach something or communicate
  something to an audience that does not have
  background in the topic that you are presenting
• Making a project/experiment for children really
  helped me hone in on those skills and sharpen my
  ability to apply information to people at an
  appropriate skill level
• Versatility is very important to reaching many
  different sorts of audiences, ie. Technical,
  non-technical, etc.
• Formulating a Plan for Designing Products and
  Processes
• Large design teams cannot be run as one large
  brainstorming session
• A Plan for design will help to fulfill the goals
  and objectives of the design team
• A Plan for design will also make sure that you
  meet requirements, constraints, and wishes of the
  stakeholders, in a methodical, logical nature,
  rather than completely haphazardly.

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The End