Design Document

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Design Document

• The Design Document is a Joint Assignment of
  Senior Design I and Technical Writing

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General Engineering Process
Problem or Expression of Need
Design Constraints
Evaluation and Synthesis of Alternative Solutions
Elements of Approach
Analysis (perhaps including experimentation)
Decision (justification of selected solution)
Solution
Adapted from Salt Rothery, Design for
Electrical and Computer Engineers
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Design Document Components

• Executive Summary
• Problem
• Design Requirements
• Technical and Practical Constraints
• Approach
• Evaluation
• Summary of Future Work
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Appendices

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Problem Statement

• Minimum Length of two-pages
• Components
• Historical Introduction
• Market and Competitive Product Analysis
• Concise Problem Statement
• Implications of your success

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Historical Introduction
Could discuss how the base technology of your
product has evolved.
Energy monitor project discussed the history of
AC power development and measurement
Could discuss how different solutions to your
problem has evolved over time
Object tracking project discussed inventory
methods from ancient Egypt to present day
6
Market and Competitive Product Analysis
What other methods exist to solve this problem?
What are the shortcomings in these competing
products.? What is the market for a solution to
this problem?
Could also say how your product will improve on
these shortcomings in this section, or leave this
for the next section.
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Concise Problem Statement
Concisely state the problem that your product
will solve. Can use technical specs to describe
what your product will do and how it will be
better (some of this could go in the previous
section).
CAUTION!!! Do not get too specific! Detailed
analysis of different approaches/tradeoffs is for
a later document. OK Competitors products only
provide a 45 degree field of vision coverage
our product will provide a 360 degree field of
vision. Not OK We will use technology X and
components Y, Z to implement a 360 degree field
of vision in our product.
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Implications of your success
If your product is successful, how will things
change? The introduction of our IPOD product
along with an online music store for single song
purchases will revolutionize how people listen to
music and purchase it. This will shift
purchasing of traditional CD albums from walk-in
stores to online transactions for single-song
content to be used on our portable music player.
This in turn will affect how music artists and
record publishers negotiate distribution
agreements for content.
Of course, only few products have this dramatic
an effect, but you get the idea.
Note we will also get filthy rich.