Assignments

Course Info

Instructors

Departments

Edgerton Center

As Taught In

Spring 2007

Level

Undergraduate

Topics

Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
  - Mechanical Design
- Systems Engineering

Learning Resource Types

Image Gallery

Projects

Design Assignments with Examples

Written Assignments with Examples

Demonstration Videos

Download Course

The assignments for this course are due on the lecture sessions indicated in the table.

SES #	Topics	Assignments
2	Mines and mined areas	Assignment 1 - Understanding landmines
3	Demining technologies	Assignment 2 - Technologies and processes
4	Demining processes	Assignment 3 - Trip signup
5	Accidents	Assignment 4 - Accidents Assignment 5 - Community
6	Community	Assignment 6 - Opportunity and ideas
7	Needs and ideas	Assignment 8 - Trip
11	Customer contacts	Assignment 9 - Project criteria
12	Manufacturing	Assignment 10 - Project plan
13	Financing	Assignment 11 - Hard questions
19	Project work	Assignment 12 - Design review one
25	Project work (cont.)	Assignment 13 - Design review two
27	Project report due	Assignment 14 - Final report

Assigned: Ses #1
Due: Ses #2

Activity

Write down 5 or more ideas for products or services that address some aspect of the landmine problem.

Represent each idea with a thumbnail sketch and a name on a 3x5 or 4x6 card. Include as much or as little information as you have for each one. Write clearly and boldly and fill the card. Use a ball point pen or black marker to write with.

Aim for diversity in your ideas. If you find your ideas are variations on each other then push yourself to think more broadly.

Do not judge or censor ideas at this stage. If you feel the urge to dismiss an idea, use this feeling as a trigger to come up with another idea that contributes something instead of taking something away.

Assigned: Ses #11
Due: Ses #12

Problem Statement

Write a two to three paragraph problem statement for your project. Describe the current situation that needs to be addressed and the consequences of this situation persisting. State the problem gap between the way things are today and what they should be. Give examples of the consequences today of not addressing the problem, or conversely, what the potential benefits are.

Problem statements are relative to the design phase a project is in. For new projects entering the pipeline, problem statements are focused on the problem or needs the user experiences. It is tempting to make a general statement like “the improper use of visors leads to unnecessary injuries.” However, it is important to be more specific, such as by further stating “reduce or eliminate fogging to decrease the occurrence of raised visors.” Usually, a general problem statement can be followed with several more specific ones. For ongoing projects, problem statements are focused more on issues with the existing design that need to be addressed to progress the design through the phases and are naturally more specific. However, in some cases a design is not working, and it becomes necessary to return to the root user problem.

Milestones

Document the two to three major deliverables or milestones you plan to achieve for the semester. Give the date and a short description of each milestone. These should be closely related to your problem statement. Plan to have these milestones coincide with the design reviews to the extent possible.

Champion

Identify who the champion for this project will be, could be or where one could be found if one cannot be identified. A champion is someone who really wants to see your project done that is not one of us. Healthy projects almost always have an outside champion or advocate identified early on.

Experts

Identify two or more experts associated with your problem area that you could talk with to get help. For each person, provide the name, title, institution, contact information and a sentence explaining why they are a relevant expert.

Assigned: Ses #12
Due: Ses #13

This is a team assignment.

Hard Questions

Identify 5 to 10 questions that you believe have a significant bearing on your project, the so called hard questions you need to answer soon.

You are looking for questions that get at the essence of your concept. What are the core issues? You are also looking for questions that challenge assumptions and test your knowledge of the situation. Although questions are easy to come up with, that does not make this an easy task. You may be tempted to choose the first several questions that come to your mind, but hold out for ones that you think will make a difference in what you do with your project. Your questions will naturally lead to discussions with members of the demining community, indicate experiments that need to be run or identify issues for design consideration.

It is often said that there is no such thing as a bad question. However, questions take time and resources to answer. And, identifying key questions can easily be the difference between poor and amazing designs. You are not trying to shoot down your project. Just be honest about what you need to know to proceed. So, avoid over critique about what you are doing and be hopeful. If you do not start out hopeful it is very hard to get anywhere.

Decide which of the questions are the highest priority and write a two to three sentence plan for finding out the answers.

Assigned: Ses #14
Due: Ses #19

Target Specifications

Create lists of target specifications for areas you are working in. For example, for the clippers these areas might be the gripper, the shield and the handle construction. Use these to evaluate your more-complete ideas in each of these areas.

A target specification list gives the characteristics of a good (to great) solution. Make these characteristics as independent of a particular concept as possible. For example, “fogging” as a characteristic assumes a visor concept with a surface that can fog up.

Give each characteristic a preferred direction for improvement. Decide if more, less or a target value is best. Give each one a value with units that is where you want to get to for that characteristic. Some will be difficult to measure or will be unit-less.

Concepts

Represent your ideas as detailed gallery sketches. These sketches may combine several ideas. For example, the breath deflector sketches may combine different ideas for shape with different attachment ideas.

Preliminary Choices

Evalute your concepts using your specifications and highlight your best options for going forward.

Summarize your investigations (experiments, tests, analyses, comparisons, etc) that support your choices. Include photos and charts of data if available. If you have run experiments, create a table of experiments outlining what was varied and what the outcomes were.

Be prepared to give answers to your hard questions.

Next Steps

List the steps that will be taken to complete the project. Focus on making prototypes, models or experiments that that demonstrate the feasibility of the ideas well.

Presentation

Prepare a 10 minute presentation to be given in class on the due date. There will be time for about 10 minutes of Q&A and discussion after your presentation. You may use up to 4 overhead slides and as many props (prototypes, foam models, experimental outcomes, products purchased, etc.) as you have available and time will allow. You are not required to use slides, but will need to create handouts or use some other means to convey some of the information. Practice this presentation and adjust it to fit the time available.

Assigned: Ses #23
Due: Ses #25

Progress

Summarizing the status of your project and progress since the last design review.

Identify any implementation concerns or outstanding issues that you have.

Implementation

Discuss the implementation choices that you have made and your reasons for making them. Include photos of models and or prototypes. Include specifics such as material choices and dimensions.

Include photos and charts of data if available. For example, if you have acted out with a model or prototype, include a sequence of photos showing the interaction. If you have run experiments, create a table of experiments outlining what was varied and what the outcomes were.

Final Steps

List the steps that will be taken to complete the project. Focus on completing prototypes, models or experiments that that demonstrate the feasibility of the ideas well.

Presentation

Prepare a 10 minute presentation to be given in class on the due date. There will be time for about 10 minutes of Q&A and discussion after your presentation. Practice this presentation and adjust it to fit the time available.

You may use up to 4 overhead slides and as many props (prototypes, foam models, experimental outcomes, products purchased, etc.) as you have available and time will allow. You are not required to use slides, but will need to create handouts or use some other means to convey some of the information.

Make any materials that you use as visual as possible. Annotate these visuals with titles and labels.

Assigned: Ses #27
Due: 4 days after Ses #27

Final Report

Write a final report describing your project following the guidelines given in the report template (PDF). See the example report (PDF) on the clippers for more guidance. Use the report template to create your report.

Assigned: Ses #2
Due: Ses #3

Technologies

Find 2 examples of each of the following technologies used in demining.

Small tools or devices about the size that would fit in a duffel bag
Medium sizes tools or devices about the size of a kitchen table
Large size tools or devices about the size of a vehicle
Animals or plants of any size

You will need to find out about 8 technologies (2 examples X 4 categories). You should not use more than four technologies from the reading so far in this class including the reading for this assignment. One or two Web sites will give you all of the answers if you find the right ones.

Try to find technologies that do widely different things. You could use the Bob Keeley reading as a guide to areas of demining, which will all have associated technology. Give each technology a name and write a sentence or two on what it is used for and how it works. Obtain an image for each one. Compile these into a document with one technology per page by inserting page breaks after each technology entry.

Assigned: Ses #3
Due: Ses #4

Activity

We need to know for sure that you are coming on the trip as we can only arrange and buy tickets once and cannot add someone after this is done.

Assigned: Ses #4
Due: Ses #5

Note: Assignments 4 and 5 are assigned and due at the same time.

Read at least 10 incident records selected at random in the Database of Demining Incidents and Victims. Do not read sequentially.

Focus on exploring these by “Activity” and by “Cause.” It is less helpful to explore them by “Country.” Also, read the Incident Record “Notes.”

Demining incidents are a great way to learn about issues in demining that could potentially be addressed through design. As you read the incidents, come up with one or more ideas for each of the records you read.

Pay attention to the types of people involved as well as the nature of the incident. Think about who your ideas are meant to help. You may find that most of your ideas help only one community member type such as deminers. By changing your focus to other community members, you can usually think of many more ideas.

Represent each idea with a title and thumbnail sketch on a 3x5 or 4x6 card and label the sketch. Write clearly and boldly and create large sketches on the card. Use a bold black marker to write with.

Assigned: Ses #4
Due: Ses #5

Note: Assignments 4 and 5 are assigned and due at the same time.

You should have already signed up for the MGEM and IGEOD Forum demining mailing list and be receiving messages.

Skim through the most recent 1000 messages archived for the MGM list. Use this content to supplement your reading on the current lists and to see older discussions.

Read at least 20 email messages from the lists and archives, and you may wish to read more. Follow some threads of current and past discussions for several messages as well as reading messages from different threads.

Identify different categories of people that are participating in the discussions or that are being discussed. Give each catagory a conceptual name. Avoid using any real names.

Get a sense of what the participants are talking about, what issues are raised, who is participating in the discussions and what organizations they are from. Take notes as you go under each of your categories as they form.

Note that there are several threads discussing new tools or technologies for demining.

Also review records in the accident database and note the categories of people involved in the incidents as well.

Create a diagram on an 11x17 piece of paper of the different people you have learned about so far in this class that are involved in the demining community. Start by making a list of the roles or titles of the different people you read about. Depict who is involved and the relationships they have to each other.

You will be asked to share your characterizations in class so that we can begin to build a sense of the people active in the demining community. As we build this understanding, it will guide our development of products.

Assigned: Ses #5
Due: Ses #6

Need Statements

Your users have problems, dreams, desires that can be addressed by design. Develop 5 or more need statements. For each statement, include information about what is lacking or inadequate about the current situation. Use evidence as much as you can. It is easy to make guesses at needs. It is harder to support need statements with information derived from the people you are trying to help.

Each statement should neither be too broad nor too specific. For example, a statement could be “reduce the pain associated with kneeling for long periods.” Saying that we should address “ergonomics” is too broad. Saying that we should “work on knee pads” is too specific.

Avoid making statements that are technology oriented in favor of ones that are user oriented. For example, “create a cushioning system” is technology oriented, where as “improve comfort while kneeling” is user oriented.

If there is a clear physically realizable thing identified by your statement, then it is probably an idea and not a need statement. “Knee pads” are physically realizable things. Add these to your ideas list!

You can often, but not always, look over ideas that you have already generated and back out what the needs are that they address. This may help you identify more needs that people have.

Remember that there are many members of the demining community, all of whom have unmet needs. You may identify important needs for other people than deminers.

Raw Ideas

Develop at least 25 raw ideas and idea fragments (including your old ones, so at least 10 more) for products that address the needs that you have identified. Think of services as well as tangible devices.

Represent each idea with a thumbnail sketch and a name on a 3x5 card.

An idea may be for a whole product that addresses an opportunity fairly completely or for a part of one that meets a sub-opportunity or solves a sub- problem that must be further developed to describe a whole product. These are product idea fragments. In fact, try to avoid developing whole ideas at once as it often slows your movement. Later, you can expand these or combine them to create more complete ideas.

Do not judge or censor ideas at this stage, but rather develop a large amount of rich and varied material. If you feel the urge to dismiss an idea, use this feeling as a trigger to come up with another idea that contributes something instead of taking something away.

Develop as many ideas as possible. It is a lot easier to develop a surplus of raw ideas that you can then use to “compose” your more complete ideas from. You need to be able to “shop” for collections of ideas in the number that you generate. If you have little to choose from and, or reject, then this will reflect itself in the quality of the ideas and opportunities that you then compose. You are aiming for a large number of ideas or idea fragments in the range of 50 or more.

Develop your raw ideas in tandem with your need statements using one to help you establish the other. You can work top down by generating the statements and then coming up with ideas for products and services that meet them. Or, you can work bottom up and group a large number of ideas into categories and then figuring out what needs are established by each emergent category.

Assigned: Ses #7
Due: 1 day after Ses #7

Things to Pack

Government issue photo ID for airline flight
Credit or other card with your name on a magnetic strip for self-check in
Student ID, to get onto Army base
Printout of this sheet with flights and emergency contact numbers
Warm work clothes, we will be outside and digging in the dirt all day on Friday and Saturday morning. The weather will be between 30 and 50F.
Bring many layers and waterproof clothing, boots, and a change of clothing
Cameras are permitted on this part of the base
Notebook and list of questions

Assigned: Ses #10
Due: Ses #11

Criteria

Create a list of 10 selection criteria for choosing a project to work on. These criteria will be used to help us select the projects for the rest of the semester.

Consider different constituents when identifying criteria, including deminers, manufacturers/distributers, yourself and members of the class. Don’t forget your own interests and motivations, which are legitimate criteria for doing projects.

State your criteria in a form that is quantitative or measurable when possible. For example, “doable in this class” could be better stated as “Expenses can be covered by the available budget,” “Can be completed in the time available” “Can be complete with the skills and equipment that we have.”