Engineering Design Method

Imagine for a moment that you are a voting-age citizen of the United States and resident in the State of Florida in the infamous presidential election of 2000 between Republican candidate George W. Bush and Democratic candidate Albert Gore. You are a Gore supporter (remember, this is just pretend!) and you know that if Gore wins in the State of Florida, he will have enough electoral votes to win the election, so you make a point of going to the polls. On election day, you find yourself standing in a voting booth staring in confusion at your "butterfly" ballot. Which hole do you punch? The second one, which is lined up with your candidate of choice, or the third one? Or both? (Find Out What Happened) Although exit polling indicated that Gore would prevail in Florida, Bush won the Florida electoral votes and the presidency, to the surprise of many. Could poor design have played a role in such a controversial and historical moment?

Don't kid yourself. Design matters. The above incident is one of many examples that illustrate how badly designed products can influence events (remember the Space Shuttle Challenger?). Take a look at these amusing, and not so amusing, examples of deficient design. Examples

So, how does one go about designing an election ballot? Or a lacrosse stick? Or a wind turbine? Or a solution to the global warming problem? Where would you start? Engineers use a multi-step process to help them conceptualize the problem they are trying to solve and develop a feasible solution to it. In its most traditional application, the Engineering Design Method leads to the development of physical innovations and products, but the approach can also be applied more loosely as a general problem solving tool. Find out about the Engineering Design Method by watching this video and taking a look at the additional resources provided below.

Your team challenge is to complete ONE of the following:

create an illustration of the Engineering Design Method using an online graphics program or;
create and upload an audio file that contains a playlist of songs, each of which represents one of the Engineering Design steps. Each song should be listed on your Team Page along with the Engineering Design step it represents and an explanation of how it relates to that step.

In addition, your individual challenge is to complete the following questions on your Personal Page:

When you design or build something, with which step do you usually start?
What is the importance of defining what the challenge or problem is and why should this be the first step?
Why would it be an advantage to go through the design process steps in the order described?
Why do you think there are so many different kinds of can openers?
How come all skyscrapers don't look alike?
How is the engineering design process different from the scientific process?
Going back to the voting scenario above, what step(s) of the process do you think were probably not executed well during the design of the butterfly ballot? Explain.