2.009 PRODUCT ENGINEERING PROCESSES
Ideation
2.009 is one of the capstone classes for mechanical engineering which I took in Fall 2013. The class focused on teaching students how to work through the product development process from ideation to initial functional prototype. We worked in teams of 18 people to come up with different product ideas (based around a central theme) and then build prototypes for them. Each team member also had leadership responsibilities for the team - I was one of the two team leaders, or systems integrators. It was my responsibility to run the team meetings, coordinate the work and make sure we met our deadlines. The class took us through many design gates, and at each gate students from each team would present the team's latest ideas and prototypes. Each gate helped us to refine our ideas until we selected the idea with the best potential of becoming a marketable product. We then built a fully functional prototype of the product. The class culminated with a publicized product launch event where students from each team presented their products on stage to a public audience.
During the early phases of the class, I learned many different ways to generate ideas for products. For example, one afternoon I walked over to a construction site by campus and watched the activity at the work site. I sketched interesting things that the welders were doing, I noted where there were potential safety hazards, I thought of ways to make the ladders safer and how I could make it easier for construction workers to carry heavy equipment. That afternoon was hugely educational for me because it was the first time I had ever really stopped to just watch and observe something for an extended period of time.
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We also learned some of the basics of sketching during this phase of the class - you can see some of my idea sketches at left.
Early bicycle powered thresher concept.
More detailed sketches of how we modified a bike stand to use it in an initial prototype.
Team poster for a mobile hygiene station.
Early bicycle powered thresher concept.
Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition
After several rounds of presentations of initial concepts, we settled on a final product idea. During our research we had met the staff of the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition (MFFC), and decided to work on an idea that they had come up with. Mattapan is an underserved neighborhood in Boston that is classified as a food desert because there are no grocery stores in the area. It is very difficult for residents to get access to food (especially if they don't have a car), and vegetables in particular are in short supply. The MFFC had built a bicycle-driven vegetable cart that some of the young people in the neighborhood would pedal around the streets on the weekend to sell locally grown produce to residents. However, the cart that the MFFC already had was very heavy and hard to pedal around hills. We wanted to design a more lightweight version of the cart.
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The gallery at left shows sketches, calculations, models and prototypes from the product development process.
This is the original cart that the MFFC had found was too heavy.
Notebook calculations of the forces on our cart.
The full team proudly showing off our product.
This is the original cart that the MFFC had found was too heavy.
Final Presentation
Finally in December, we completed our product and proudly showed it off during the final presentations. I was one of the three presenters for my team. You can watch our entire presentation below.