MY ENGINEERING DESIGN PORTFOLIO

By Nithin Ganesh Prasad

ESC 102

Professional Statement
In this Engineering Design Portfolio you will find the following: my core design achievements (mainly over the past year), my areas of focus and strength, and areas for future development. Over the past year in Engineering Science, I encountered design projects several times to be addressed in groups of 2-4 students. These projects took place in a number of courses ranging from Praxis to Civil Engineering to Programming. This portfolio contains design entries mainly related to Praxis and Civil Engineering as I feel that these entries best represent my engineering design philosophy and the design process. The entries that will be discussed in this portfolio are titled: The Innovative Leafblower, The Efficient Bridge, The SolidWorks Entertainment Center, The PSW RFP and The Deaf Bicyclist Showcase. Each of these projects dealt with one or more of the following steps in Engineering Design: framing the problem, identifying the solution, and implementing the solution. My views on each of these steps will be described first in the following section of the document. In my overall engineering design process my key strengths have been in a variety of areas. First was the ability to envision the problem (see the problem physically) from many angles. This allowed me to pinpoint appropriate solutions using a variety of idea generation techniques such as TRIZ and SCAMPER, allowing me to visualize physical models of the system. Hence SolidWorks models, for instance became a lot easier to create. Another was the ability methodically make a decision and explore many avenues. Exploring decisions was made feasible by use of comparison charts and weighted decision making matrices. Exploring different avenues was important as it allowed me to narrow down onto a decision given a wider perspective, hence ruling out the potential for narrow-minded solutions. A last key strength in my design process was my use of different methods of representing a solution. For instance, although I loved concrete facts and tables, I also used graphs and diagrams to convey the message for clarity purposes. Although I had many favourable ideas and approaches in my engineering design process, I did identify two key areas for improvement in the near future. The first area stems from group-work and the ability to create consensus amongst a group. For instance, although I would have an idea, it would often be rejected by the group because of my failure to communicate this effectively. Although I did improve on this for some of the later projects, it is still an area of improvement for the future. Furthermore, another area of improvement that I found was creating effective documents. I found that compared to others, my documentation skills were less appealing because of my lack of headers and awkward structure. This may seem trivial when related to the engineering process, but in the final stages of the process or in the documentation stage, I found it to be a key element in creating an effective, readable document which would be appealing to most readers. The following sections of the portfolio will feature my personal design process and artifacts that were created over the past year based on this model.

My Personal Engineering Design Process

As stated in the professional statement, I see the Design Process as being composed of three stages: the framing, generating and implementing of the solution. Framing the Problem: I see framing as the first of the key stepping stones in a complete Engineering Design Process. Over the various projects that we have assessed over the past year in Engineering Science, I found that to identify any problem, you need a context a community or object in need of maintenance, repair or improvement. Establishing this community is central to the definition of the problem. Once this community was in place, the actual problem has to be defined with any associated metrics. Subsequently, the stakeholders associated with the problem and/or community have to be identified and contacted. These stakeholders contacts are valuable as they provided different views on the problem. Once the basic framing and identification of the problem and community are done, additional background information about the problem must be gathered and the team must begin to create a working set of requirements for the solution. The research is used as a backbone to form the objectives, constraints and criteria for the potential solution to satisfy. In addition, existing solutions and their drawbacks have to be identified as well for presentation to the solution team. The combination of preliminary problem identification and setting up the requirements form the Framing portion of the design process. Generating the Solution: Once the Framing team passes the problem onto the design team, the design team must assess the given problem first before coming up with potential solutions. We followed the following model in our projects after we received a design problem. I found the first part of this solution generation was to actually assess the given problem. A design team must first assess the scope and constraints of the problem given and decide if and how they should push back against any unreasonable constraints. Once the problem is fit to be resolved, they should assess the sources and conduct research and make contacts of their own to understand the problem better. After the preliminary problem reworking and research is done, the team can now start to look at potential designs. Using various idea generation techniques and existing designs for inspiration, the team should generate ideas individually before collaborating and sharing their ideas. Using some sorted of chart or weighted design matrix, the team should rank their ideas and eliminate the unfavourable designs leaving a few suitable options to choose from. Further selection can be used to determine the optimum design.

Implementing the Solution: Once the design team has chosen the optimum design, they need to complete the final stage of implementation. We found this stage to mainly consist of the following steps: Develop models and engineering drawings for the product. Determine various aspects of the product such as materials, cost, shape and size of parts, and other features. Finalize the less significant features such as product name. Ensure that the product conforms to existing standards and patent laws. Develop a working prototype for the product.

Annotations and Artifacts

The Blow-Vacuum: Abstract During Praxis I, our team was tasked to create a detailed design for a device that would act as a leaf blower and clear the lawn but have an attached vacuum that would collect the leaves into a bag. There were several options presented so we chose to create the design for the optimum model. We followed the model presented in the solution implementation section of the Engineering Design Process as we created the specifics and detailed solid model for the blow-vacuum. Artifact

SolidWorks Model for the Blow Vacuum

The Efficient Bridge: Abstract During our Structures and Materials Course, we had a final project where we were required to design a bridge (in groups of 3) capable of withstanding dead and live loads of a given metric. Using theoretical bridge design that we had learned over the semester, we had to come up with the design, structure and dimensions for a beam bridge made of bristol board with a constraint on maximum materials available for use. It was important to include this design as an artifact because during the project, we went through two of the three stages of the engineering design process previously established. This challenge required use of the engineering design process because we had to first generate the possible solutions, and then choose the best design of the proposed solutions in list. We were then required to do the detailed design and actually construct the bridge for the final testing.

Artifact

The Beam Bridge: Final Product

The SolidWorks Entertainment Center: Abstract Over the Christmas Break, I decided to take my team and explore SolidWorks. I began by viewing tutorials and experimenting with smaller designs. After a short while my interest grew to creating a larger, more-complex but realistic system. Hence, I chose to model our entertainment center. This was a system of multiple parts and required planning and various modelling tools to make. I chose to include this design as an artifact in the portfolio because although I did not create the design itself, I had think like the designer in order to visualize, model and assemble the full structure. Through this, I also gained insight into why the designer made certain engineering decisions, complementing my understanding of the engineering design process. This design lay within the implementation of the solution as it required visualization of a design in order to construct a solid model of it. It required examining the finer details, rather than the simpler sketches generating possible solutions. Artifact

Entertainment Center Solid Model

The PSW RFP: Abstract In Praxis II, in a team of four, we were tasked with identifying a community in need in the City of Toronto and frame a problem that this community faced. We chose Personal Support Workers (PSWs) as our community in need for the assignment. We created an RFP to address this task which contained stakeholders, requirements, and background information for the problem. This task focussed on the first part of the Engineering Design Process of framing the problem, and was hence included in this portfolio. Artifact Please refer to the following link to view the RFP: http://www.scribd.com/doc/136846191/Reducing-the-Risk-of-MusculoskeletalDisorders-in-Personal-Support-Workers-2 The Deaf Bicyclist Showcase: Abstract In Praxis II, in a team of four, we were also tasked to design a solution for a given RFP in our case it was to address road safety for deaf bicyclists. We came up with a working solution for the RFP with a physical model, as well as estimations and design mock-ups for the final showcase. Artifact Please refer to the following link for the abstract (for showcase) document: http://www.scribd.com/doc/136847346/Praxis-Design-Abstract-Final

Outdoor Testing of the Sound Pickup Device

Praxis II Design Showcase With Poster