Project: Drawings and Statement

The next step for the project will be a clear statement of the objectives and a set of hand drawings. These work hand-in-hand: writing text and making drawings are generative in complementary ways.

Objectives

After this exercise, you should be able to:

  1. Articulate a narrative of machine behavior and form.

  2. Partition a system design between mechanical, computational, and electrical domains.

  3. Write a clear and concise description of a mechanical system combining computation and mechanism.

  4. Draw multiple views of a machine at a precision to reveal design and engineering concerns.

Prompts

After identifying a specific machine idea, a full design consideration involves thinking through the entire development process even in the presence of unknowns and contingencies. Ideally, at this point the process will raise all the major questions which the project might encounter and provide tentative answers, even though many more questions will be discovered during development.

This initial consideration of your idea will answer many of the following prompt questions:

  1. What is your big idea, in a sentence or two?

  2. If you apply Why-How Laddering, can you identify an essential underlying question? What is the simplest abstraction of your idea? (See also Ideation and Brainstorming).

  3. Who is the audience? This might include users, viewers, passive bystanders, or remote persons.

  4. What is the experience of the audience? What might they remember?

  5. Where would the machine be used or located, and under what circumstances?

  6. Does the work reference existing projects? Please include citations.

Checklist

The following represents a minimum result, please extend this as appropriate for your given idea. The result should be complete enough to give you confidence that your idea is both feasible and meaningful.

  1. Narrative description.

    • Title.

    • Short summary of the purpose or application.

    • A brief narrative description of a typical experience.

    • How might your audience respond?

  2. Technical outline.

    • Short summary of the first-draft technical solution.

    • How does it work? What are the physical principles?

    • What kind of materials, structure, and mechanism?

    • What kind of sensors, actuators, and algorithms?

    • What are the key technical challenges?

  3. Drawings. These are not production drawings; they may be hand-drawn. The purpose is to identify approach and structure, not necessarily fabricate parts.

    • Isometric or perspective view of the overall device or installation. Please include scale and units.

    • Detailed two-view or three-view drawings for any mechanical elements (structure, bearings, linkages, motor drives, circuit boards, etc.) Please include scale and units.

    • Visual depiction of the project in context.

Deliverables

  1. Please post your project text and drawings in the shared folder on the course site. Please create only one post per group (if working with a partner).

  2. For Wednesday: please be prepared to give a short (5 minute) verbal presentation of your idea in class using your post as media, to be followed by questions and critique.