Engineering Design Process

There are seven general steps to the Engineering Design Process. To understand the process, our class split into groups of three or four. My group consisted of me, Carolin Chou, Sanvi Guruprasad, and Aditi Arunprakash. Below are the steps and our application of the process!

1. Define the problem

2. Research the problem

Our problem was to build a transportation vehicle using some given KNEX pieces.

3. Brainstrom possible solutions

4. Choose the best solution

Rather than drawing our solutions, we immediately started touching and analzying our materials, which included various KNEX pieces and two elastic rubber bands. Though the process reccommends that we draw a digram and make a list of materials needed, as we were already given specific materials rather than selecting from scratch, we decided to build and test in order to establish a solid diagram and vehicle.

5. Build a model/prototype

6. Test your solution

7. Communicate your solution to make it better

As you can see, there is a grey piece in the center of the back bar. Originally, we wanted our car to run by the force from an elastic band, but after our car consistently failed to move, we decided to forgo the band altogether. Though this seems pretty straighforward, the design process is more fluid than an exact step-by-step procedure, and we went through much trial and error with the wheels and the shape of the car (repeating steps 3-7) before coming up with our final vehicle and design. Sanvi suggested that if we had a better elastic, than the car would've functioned properly without us having to manually push it. So for manual pushing, the grey piece is unnecessary altogether; however, if we were to use an elastic, then the grey piece is our key.