Everyday objects like paper clips, pencils, and aluminum cans are taken for granted, yet their design and production present tremendous challenges to engineers in terms of working tolerances, quality control, and economy of manufacture, not to mention aesthetics and ergonomics. Thus, these simple artifacts provide ideal case studies for introducing students to a wide variety of engineering concepts, principles, and problems in already familiar and readily accessible real-world contexts. In this project, a variety of analytical and computer models of simple objects like paper clips will be developed, in conjunction with desk-top experiments, to introduce students to the methods and limitations of design, analysis, and development in engineering. The simplest models will be accessible to firstyear students, yet will necessarily involve enough restrictive assumptions and simplifications to make them suitable also for refinement, extension, and further use in subsequent courses. The analytical and computer models, as well as the complementary desk-top experiments employing actual paper clips and, to the extent permitted by the scope of the project, other manufactured objects, will be suitable to introduce and guide individual and group design exercises focused on the redesign and improvement of the artifacts explored. In addition to the development and use of models for design and redesign, this project will also develop larger contexts into which to present the design problem, so that students will be exposed to other aspects of product realization, including marketing and sales considerations. In this way, the analytical aspects of engineering will not be presented in a vacuum. Finally, the pedagogical resources developed in this project will be presented in articles for wide dissemination and use throuqhout the enqineerinq curriculum.
