This Early Faculty Career Development (CAREER) project integrates research in the early, formulation stage of engineering design with education of university students and outreach to K-12 youth. The early phase of design includes the generation, exploration, and selection of potential design concepts. Decisions made during this stage can have strong impact on the remainder of the design process and its outcomes. Ideally, changes in an individual design can be tracked over the early phase of design so that potential assessments about the final design can be made. However, early stage design process is by nature highly fluid and unstructured, making such measurements very challenging. The approach that this investigation takes is to analyze the data output of the early stage design process itself, rather than focus on the design artifact alone. The goal is to model and determine methods for evaluating the concept generation and exploration process. Measures will be determined through analysis of design process information, such as text, sketches, and prototypes drawn from design artifacts and design documentation.
The evolution of these artifacts and design process will be modeled and combined with process measures to serve as indicators of potential design outcomes and used as feedback for the dynamic design process. This work will be conducted in active collaboration with engineering companies, including those in the aerospace and automotive industries. Closely linked to this research are efforts to expose K-12 students to early stage engineering design via hands-on, project-based design activities with organizations such as the Tech Museum of Innovation, and through a documentary video production that promotes engineering. These endeavors aim to engage young people in early stage engineering design and cultivate their interest in engineering in general, and will likely achieve new teaching and learning paradigms for innovative engineering design.
The early stage of design is a fundamental, high-impact phase within the overall engineering design process. This project investigated the preliminary stage of design by developing an improved understanding of the data generated during design and of the design process itself. Decisions made during the early stage can have substantial impact on the remainder of the design process and its outcomes. Ideally, changes in an individual design can be tracked over the early phase of design so that potential assessments about the final design can be made. However, early stage design process is by nature highly fluid and unstructured, making it challenging to measure and assess. Measures are determined through analysis of design process information, such as sketches, models, and prototypes of design concepts. INTELLECTUAL MERITS The goals of this work were to:1) Develop measures for early stage design process including concept generation, design space exploration, and design outcome.2) A model that describes the evolution of preliminary stage design process over time to provide visibility into the design process3) A framework that links the above with design outcome to provide predictive indicators of final performance throughout the design process.This project addressed these issues in numerous studies that examined the types of design artifacts, such as the sketches that design teams produced, and the nature of interactions among team members themselves. It was found that the quantity of dimensioned sketches at the beginning of design correlated with measures of project success, suggesting that certain types of visual exploration early on might play a positive role in design. In contrast, drawings produced late in the cycle tended to correlate negatively with design outcomes.The influence of a sketch's fidelity, or level of detail, on how potential users perceive a product was also examined. 600 respondents were presented the same product sketched in in multiple styles. Realistic, representational styles were preferred over more stylized sketches as well as CAD models. This has implications for the way designers represent concepts to potential users. This project further considered how team members themselves interact with each other and the influence of these interactions in project success. Formal of models of design assume that team members can share information with each other in specific ways, such as directly with each other or through a facilitator. Computer simulations found that the quantity and type of information shared between team members can profoundly affect the how quickly a team can reach a good design, as well as the quality of that final design. BROADER IMPACTS One goal of this project was to encourage undergraduates to pursue engineering and design as fields of study. Numerous undergraduates were productive, active researchers on many of the projects, and co-authored academic papers on their work. Furthermore, a brand new undergraduate course was developed specifically under the auspices of this project to engage students of all disciplines. This course offers hands-on design experiences to undergraduates and has enrolled students from nearly every major on campus.
