The Difference Between " pen-Ended Projects" and "Design Projects" O

Don L. Dekker Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Abstract

There is a difference between "engineering design projects" and good "open-ended engineering projects." There is a lot of confusion about the difference between design and an engineering project. Both types of project will follow problem solving steps. However, the "engineering design project" must also have done some conceptual design, some embodiment design and some detail design (as defined by Pahl and Beitz) or it will not be a design project. This is not to say that a design project is better or worse than an openended project but they are different and require different skills. Engineers will do many of both kinds of projects during their careers. It is important that we, as faculty, recognize the difference when we structure the learning experiences for our students. This paper discusses some of the design structures and gives an example of both a "design projects" and a good "open-ended" engineering project. require different skills. Both of these essential skills are very different from the single answer problems which are assigned in many classes where "the" answer is given in the back of the book. Engineers will do many of both kinds of projects during their careers. It is important that we, as faculty, recognize the difference when we structure the learning experiences for our students.

The Engineering Design Processes

Many authors have developed a "framework" or "structure" to help describe engineering design. Most of these "structures" have been developed in the European design community. Studying the engineering design processes became necessary only after WWII when the products which were being developed became more complex. More complex products of war were developed during WWII and these design and development techniques were then used in civilian industry after the war. Many of the companies that had been involved in the war effort reverted to peacetime producers. The complexity of the wartime products and the associated design processes carried over into their peacetime products. This complexity of the products and the associated division of labor required greater use of physical laws, mathematics, information theory, materials selection, and systematic design techniques. Perhaps the "king" of these complicated peacetime projects was the landing of a man on the moon. This required a concept, a lot of calculations, preliminary layouts, much prototype testing, a great deal of detail designing and specifying the shape of the parts and recording this in a document (drawing), production, and finally the "moon shot." Hubka and Eder define the design process as "Designing means transforming the given problem statement into a full description of a technical system. The direct content of the design process consists of thinking out (conceptualizing) and describing the structures of a technical system." [2 46]. pp Robert L. Bailey, in his book Disciplined Creativity for Engineers proposes a six step approach to problem solving [3 pp 69]. These steps are: (1) Problem Inquiry, (2) Specifying Goals, (3) Determining Means, (4) Solution Optimization, (5) Construction and Verification, and (6) Convince Others. All of the above "structures" have feed back arrows which means that the engineering team will have to go back and expand on previous steps. This "re-doing" is

Introduction
The engineering practitioner will encounter many different kinds of "challenges" or problems. Some of the challenges will require using basic problem solving steps to produce a solution. Other challenges will require the creation of a new product, that is, the engineering design processes will have to be utilized. Yet other challenges will only require the application of some of the engineering analysis skills that have been learned during college or onthe-job. Many of these challenges require the application of creative skills as well as analysis. It should be noted that engineering design and open-ended engineering problem solving are both very important parts of the daily life of a working engineer. The practice of engineering is essentially solving open-ended, poorly-defined problems or challenges. There is, however, a difference between "engineering design projects" and good "open-ended engineering projects." It is important to make this distinction and to develop the vocabulary to discuss the differences to reduce the confusion between engineering design and open-ended engineering problem solving. The "engineering design project" must have done some conceptual design, some embodiment design and some detail design. Pahl and Beitz [1] have defined the design process with four steps: (1) Clarify the Task, (2) Conceptual Design, (3) Embodiment Design, and (4) Detail Design. This is not to say that a design project is better or worse than an open-ended project but they are different and

necessary because at the beginning, when you know the least about the problem - that is when you define the problem. When the engineering design processes are completed, then you understand the problem you have just completed. However, at that point you are "off and running" on a new assignment.

emerge from the design processes. Detail Design After the configuration of each of the components and the connections between the components is set in the embodiment phase, the tremendous task of detail design begins. What size bolt, how many bolts, glue or bolt or weld, materials to be used, details of the power system. When I look at this the amount of detail design that went into describing the entire assembly for the moon shot -- it is mindboggling! The university does not prepare students adequately for the detail design phase of design projects. Drawing and drafting are not even taught in many curricula. Material selection is much too large of a knowledge base to be learned by taking one or two courses. Etcetera, etcetera.

Conceptual Design, Embodiment Design and Detail Design

The aforementioned landing of men on the moon is an excellent example of the three phases of a design project. This is described in Space by John Mitchner [4], Life in Space by Time-Life Books [5] has excellent photographs of this mission, and Chapter 8 in Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center, From Sputnik to Apollo [6] chronicles these events in detail. Conceptual Design

Engineering Problem Solving

John Houbolt first thought of the Lunar Orbital Module (LOM) approach and then spent a lot of time and effort trying to sell this "obviously great" idea. At the time the two concepts for landing men on the moon were the Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) and the direct ascent which was similar to the Jules Verne type of rocket approach to the moon. It should be noted that Houbolt estimated the weights of the different phases of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous in his initial concepts. These weights were so amazingly low that several NASA scientists actually accused John Houbolt of lying. "'Your figures lie!' shouted Mercury designer Maxime Faget. A more subdued Wernher von Braun simply shook his head, saying 'No, that's no good.'" [5] This is conceptual design. During this phase of the design project the design team should investigate other concepts or alternatives. If you are designing an airplane this is when you would investigate different wing shapes and configurations. This phase of the design process doesn't take a lot of time, but an inappropriate selection here can cause insurmountable problems later. Note that since this "conceptual design" phase doesn't take the most time, students often consider this unimportant. Students want to get into the real "nitty-gritty" and utilize your wonderful analytic skills that they have struggled so hard to master. However, you can only analyze something after it has been conceived. Embodiment Design After the concept, or a couple of concepts, have been selected for further study, the shape, size, power, materials, configuration, etc. begin to take form. Houbolt's first sketch showed only rudimentary form and shapes. Next the configurations and connections must start to Finding solutions to open-ended problems is a major portion of an engineers work. Some of these challenges occur because of hardware inadequacies or failures. Others occur because of unexpected problems caused by new application of the hardware. It is impossible, in most situations to predict all of the results of scaling up from the lab to full scale, or from laboratory data and information to the application in the "real world." In the real world there are temperature extremes, there are supporting structures, which vibrate, there are birds on airport runways among the many variables which are difficult to anticipate. An Example: This example is from mechanical engineering laboratory. After a building was remodeled, a laboratory would vibrate when an air compressor was operated. This vibration was unwanted because it caused the electronic equipment to vibrate and it was uncomfortable for the students and faculty using the laboratory. A laboratory group in mechanical engineering laboratory decided to take this on as their project. The students set a goal of reducing the vibration to one, one-hundredth (0.01) of original vibration. They then measured the frequency and magnitude of the vibration in the laboratory and measured the magnitude and frequency of the vibration of the base of the compressor. They took some of the existing damping material and determined the spring constant by using a hydraulic tensile test machine to determine the force deflection curve. Then the consulted their vibration book and looked at the magnitude-deflection curve. They determined that they couldn't make it stiffer because they could only reduce the vibration by a factor of 10. Therefore

they were able to estimate the spring constant of the material required to reduce the vibration by a factor of 100. They then went to the manufacturer's information and selected the proper material to reduce the transmission of vibration from the compressor to an acceptable level. This was an excellent engineering problem. It solved a real problem and it was a very open-ended project, that is, there are many solutions to this challenge. However, it was not a design project. There was no conceptual design, there was no embodiment design, and there was no detail design. It should be noted that this could have become a design project if they had designed a device of some type to reduce the vibration transmission instead of selecting a product from a catalog. However, this was only a four week project and the design portion would have taken time well beyond that which should have been spent.

Conclusion:
Projects can be design projects or good solid engineering projects. Almost all engineering projects will include the following steps: problem definition, search for alternatives, analysis, selection of the "best" alternative, and, of course, implementation. The design projects will include all of these phases and, in addition, will include conceptual design, embodiment design and detail design. Projects done in the university setting usually include only conceptual design and a little embodiment design and usually no detail design. The practicing engineer will do many projects of both kinds during his/her career and must be prepared to apply the right skill at the appropriate time.

References
1 Pahl, G. and Beitz, W., Engineering Design: A Systematic Approach, Edited by Ken Wallace, SpringerVerlag, The Design Council, 1988 2 Hubka, Vladimir and Eder, W. Ernst, ENGINEERING DESIGN: General Procedural Model of Engineering Design, Heurista, Zurich 1992 3 Bailey, Robert L., Disciplined Creativity for Engineers, Ann Arbor, MI, Ann Arbor Science Publishers, Inc., 1979 4 Mitchner, James, SPACE, Ballantine Books, New York, 1982 5 Mason, Robert, G., Editor, LIFE IN SPACE, Time-Life Books, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1983 6 Hansen, J. R., Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center, From Sputnik to Apollo, NASA Sp-4308 Chapter 8 Enchanted Rendezvous: The Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept