What We Will Learn

1
Lecture 2

• What We Will Learn
• Choice of Projects
• October 2, 2008

2
Today

• Administrivia
• Next weeks class
• Classrooms
• Any Questions?
• Syllabus and subjects to be covered
• Intro to DFX methodologies
• A review of the candidate projects
• Choosing project/team exercise

3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
The Course

• Design for X
• A structured design process
• Taking into account the things that can go wrong
• Takes into account contemporary thinking on
  Product design for the Developing World
• X
• Sustainability Manufacturability, Assembly
• Environment Maintainability
• Cultural sensitivity Testability
• Ultra low cost ROI or triple bottom line
• Customer Needs Safety
• Reliability etc.

8
Example

• Design for ultra low cost
• Products need to be affordable to people who make
  (1-2/day).
• Fast payback ltone year
• For very low cost
• Locally available materials
• Light in materials
• Targeted directly to basic need
• De-featured
• Substitute Labor for materials
• Piggybacks on available subsystem

9
Issues in Design for Ultra Low Cost

• Design to reduce labor is a tough sell-
  especially if its womens labor. Labor is Cheap
• Design for human environment (stove, latrine) is
  not immune to the very low cost constraint.
• Design for Human betterment (wheelchair) requires
  a hybrid model -subsidization

10
E/ME 105

• Project Selection
• Consider projects
• Select two projects in order or priority
• Lots of students
• Lots of projects
• May not get your first choice
• Please consider taking the course next year if
• You are not fully committed to the course
• You are not a senior
• You dont need the credit
• You have conflicts
• We want to avoid mid-course drops because of the
  effect on your team

11
Course extensibility

• In the past students have continued to work on
  projects even after the quarter is over
• Wheelchair
• Corn Sheller
• Latrine
• Stove
• Water Purification
• For students who wish to continue after 2008,
  there will be Independent Study opportunities
  with Landivar, Caltech and Art Center teams

12
Criteria for choice

• Problem understood
• Something doable in 2 months
• Impact
• Chemistry
• Affordability
• Prior work
• Implementation speed
• Transfer from previous team

13
Continuing an old project

• Advantages
• Can build on established knowledge
• Problem definition
• Previous students as mentors
• Possible identified customers
• Learning from past attempt (s)
• Iteration as a path to wisdom
• Challenge make the step of sufficient length

14
Questions to ask of an old project

• What are the barriers to success?
• Incorporate into your problem statement
• Are they surmountable?
• Can you surmount them?
• You will have to make a best guess based on
  insufficient information

15
A New Project

• Life is often learning when to kill stuff
• Good not to beat a dead horse
• Can apply a totally different approach to an old
  problem
• Problems themselves change as the world changes

16
What world changes might affect your product

• Design for the environment includes the macro
  environment as well.
• Whats happening?

17
Teams
18

• Who has worked on Teams before?
• What worked- what were the best things that
  happened?
• What did not work- what were the worst things
  that happened?

19
Why are products developed by teams?

• Complexity
• Skill specialization
• Diversity
• Parallel Processing
• Workload
• Speed
• Insight
• 113
• self-correcting

20
What are some of the negatives?

• Complexity
• Many interactions amongst people require some
  effort to manage
• Communications
• Teams can break down
• Possibility of Groupthink overwhelming the lone
  independent thinker
• Possibility of Dictatorship

21
What are some of the characteristics of a good
team process?

• Clear delineation of responsibilities
• Generating many ideas before scrutinizing
• Writing down clear goals
• Effective communication of progress, and
  challenges
• Deadlines
• Clear meeting dates and times, good attendance

22
Some Characteristics of Successful Teams

• Leadership
• Commitment
• Integrity
• Common purpose
• Behaviors
• respect
• pitch in
• delegate
• What else?

23
Some guidelines for discussion. . .

• Decide on your objective
• Why are you here?
• Choose roles
• Who does what on team
• Suggestions
• Time keeper
• Scribe
• Leader (Define)
• Choose means of communication
• e.g. e-mail, phone, wiki or web-site,
  face-to-face

24
Some guidelines (Hard but Important)

• Write down agreements and disagreements
• Write down actions and plans for resolution
• Write down all action items (what, who, when)
• Review action items beginning each meeting
• Try and invent new ways of interacting

25
Guidelines (cont.)

• For meetings
• Show up
• Show up on time
• Take process breaks periodically, ask
• Do you have an agenda? Should you have an
  agenda?
• Are you sticking to an agenda or are you
  wandering off the subject?
• Is everybody contributing?
• Evaluate as you go

26
Rules

• Write down your rules.
• Everybody signs

27
Test of team effectiveness

• After First and Second week
• Ask yourselves
• What are you doing really well
• What are the emerging issues?
• Have you addressed them?

Your mentors, led by Ariel, will be consulting
with you
28
My experience at Caltech (n30)

• Best teams- commitment, respect and integrity
  (most important!)
• A product that people believe in
• (helps but less important)
• Similar backgrounds
• (least important)

29
ExerciseWhen you have your first meeting

• Decide on ground rules
• What you will do
• 1. When a team member is having difficulty
  participating?
• 2. When you are having trouble agreeing?
• 3. When the goals are seen as not-reachable?
• 4. Other Issues?

30
1. A team member is having difficulty
participating?
31
2. You are having trouble agreeing?
32
3. If the Team goals are seen as not reachable?
33
4. What other problems do you Anticipate?
34
Assignment for next Thursday (Wed)

• When your Team is formed, write down your Teams
  rules. Everybody signs. Send to Tom, Luzmi,
  Ovidio, Oscar, Tony and myself

35
Mission Statement

• Brief (one sentence) description of the product
• Key business goals
• Target market for the product
• Primary
• Secondary
• Assumptions that constrain design
• Stakeholders

36
Mission Statement

• Submit next Tuesday

37
Addenda

• Two examples from previous classes of what is
  meant by a mission statement are appended

38
Example 1Grain Thresher Mission Statement and
Marketing Plan

• Kenneth Fisher, Amit Gandhi, John Gardener, Vicky
  Mosquera

39
Product Description

• Device for threshing and separating harvested
  grains in a semi-automatic way.

40
Key Business Goals

• Provide a service life of 1-2 years
• Cycle time less than a week
• Selling on an family or communal basis
• Product should be cheap to manufacture
• Offer financing

41
Target Market

• Primary Market Rural subsistence farmers or
  farming collectives, probably of rice
• Secondary Markets
• Larger farms
• Mill owners
• Other countries that produce grains

42
Assumptions

• There is a market for this product.
• Materials are available in Guatemala.
• There are local shops that can assemble and
  maintain the product.
• Villagers are mainly threshing by hand or with a
  threshing flail.
• Access to a mill.

43
Constraints

• Threshing of wheat, barley, and oats.
• The product should be able to fit in the bed of a
  pickup truck.
• In-situ assembly or assembly at a local bike
  shop.
• Process the same amount of grain per day as
  currently processed.

44
Stakeholders

• Rice farmers, both subsistence and larger scale
• Mill owners
• Bike repair/machine shops
• Government organizations
• Ken Pickar, Jeff Kranski
• us

45
Example 2ITMIndependence Through Mobility in
the Third World

• Ben Sexson, Mike Easler,
• Cindy Ko, Rudy Roy,
• Alejandra Antonucci

46
Mission Statement

• Our mission is to work to provide an improved
  means of transportation to every disabled person
  in the developing areas of Guatemala, one which
  can handle the conditions they face every day,
  leading to maximum personal independence and
  integration into society.

47
Product Description

• Due to the competition in designing third world
  wheelchairs, we wish to design a kit or kits to
  improve current means of transportation of
  Guatemalan people, from improving wheelchairs to
  wheelbarrows.
• The kits should be bolt-on to their existing
  transportation
• These kits should be easily assembled from bike
  and wheelbarrow parts found in-country and built
  by people there. Sending a kit through the mail
  would be too expensive (bulk freight)
• Because of the extreme poverty of the area, these
  kits must be inexpensive, so perhaps a better way
  to sell these might be to go through NGO's like
  UNICEF or Joni and Friends. This would also cut
  down on shipping (we dont ship the kit, they do.)

48
Primary Market

• Guatemalan rural disabled poor
• NGO's like UNICEF

49
Secondary Market

• Other developing countries
• Urban Guatemala
• Guatemalan government?

50
Assumptions

• There is a need for better disabled
  transportation in third world countries.
• This product will improve mobility and thus
  quality of life of the end users
• NGO's like UNICEF working in the third world
  would be interested in this product.
• Costs of production would make this more feasible
  then building entire wheelchairs.

51
Constraints

• Extreme poverty of the end user
• Rough terrain
• Non uniformity of existing disabled
  transportation
• Distance between designers and market
• Language Barrier

52
Stakeholders

• The ITM team
• Ken Pickar
• Disabled people in Guatemala and around the World
• UNICEF