Real world engineering examples/design process project comparison

5 of the types of engineering – aerospace engineering, environmental engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering  

Aerospace engineering example projects:

• Solar drone unmanned vehicle
• XCub Sport Utility Aircraft

• Telecommunications Satellite

environmental engineering projects:

• Solar-Powered Salt Removal
• Cleaning up oil spill
• Reduce energy footprint

Civil engineering projects:

• Qingdao Haiwan Bridge. …
• Burj Khalifa. …
• English Channel Tunnel

Chemical engineering projects:

• Water treatment
• Food science and technology
• Clean energy technology

Mechanical engineering

• Staircase Climbing Trolley.
• Manual Roller Bending Machine.
• Coin Based Cola & Soda Vending Machine.

My Project: Creating a product that will turn medicine into a special type of lotion that could apply on the body and let the skin absorb all the medicine substance.

Identify problem:

• Many people, especially kids, are struggling with taking medicine. Sine most of drug taste awful, sometimes people are vomiting and wasting all the of their medicine.

Background research

• There are some approaches due the complexity of taking medicine such as:
  • If the patient vomits after taking any medicine, give them again 20 or 30 minutes later
  • Try to act positive whenever you about to take medicine
  • For kids, what you could do is put lay him or her on the floor and try to play peekaboo with them couple times (closing their eyes), and after you feel like it’s been enough, put that medicine or substance inside his/her mouth – by doing this, they will swallow it without even thinking what is happening.   
  • You can drink your medicine with sweets stuff – if you can’t take that bitter taste
  • If you want your kids to make that medicine in, what you could do is promising them what you will give to him or her after he/she done taking their medicine – by doing this, kids will try to overcome the challenge because they knew that there is something more exciting to do afterward.
• However, these strategy only work for small amount of people. Since everyone in the world is non-identical, we see stuff and learn from it differently. For example, if this way works for you, but that doesn’t it works for somebody else.

Identify and specify the needs/requirements and limitations/constraints

• I want my product to be a machine that could turn any type of medicine into lotion, with some involvement with certain amount of fresh water being add to that machine
• Since I think my product would be an object that people might want to have with them, the price for my product, everyone could afford it
• Specification & constraints: use less plastic, weigh less, shape as a square, easy to carry around everyday people go

 Brainstorm

• I might have to survey as many people as I could about “Do they have any struggle everything they take pill? Or do their children’s) face that same problem? If yes, what design they want it to be?
  • My continuous project will be based on people’s answer
• I might also need to create some posters or even a Facebook page where I talk about my project and let the public know about. By doing this people will know more about what I’m doing and most importantly, I need people to work me, so these are someway that I could advertise my business.
  • I might also be hiring people that know specific skill, to work with me. For example, I need computer programmers in order to invent my product, so people who have that as their occupation, might willing to work with me  
• I need to work with doctors because I think they will help me a lot with my project, since it is relating to medicine
• Possible materials
  • Plastic, wood, iron, paper, sticks

Analyze ideas

• After reading all people’s responses, I have discovered that a lot of people (especially kids), are struggling with taking medicine due to their sickness. So, the design that people are demanding for is: having the product to be an iron with 10cm (width) by 15 cm (length) by 10cm (height), having a small plastic handle at the side of the machine (for mixing the medicine), having a small hole for putting the water in, having another small hole who the liquid to come out and having the lid to be wooden.
• Advantages:
  • Plastic handle
    • it will not get destroyed when it touches water (after using the product, you need to clean it), and it is cheap than most of other materials
• Disadvantages:
  • Plastic handle
    • the disadvantages of having a plastic handle are it will be broke easily if it drops, it will reduce its quality if it stays under the sun, and it might be difficult to repair, it will melt if it touches fire
• Advantages:
  • The whole machine to be an iron
    • There will be no effects if it touches fire or water, it will last longer

• Disadvantages:
  • The whole machine to be an iron
    • If it drops it will produce dents, it adds up weight, it will be so hot when it stays under the sun, it will sink if it (unfortunately) drops into a pool or something

Develop and test models

• We will Inventor software to create our first design and then send it back to the people that we have surveyed to see if that is what they want or meet their requirement. Whatever the feedback that we got from them, we will develop our design of the product, and when our customer feel like that is what they want, then we will use 3D printer to create our first prototype.

Refine, modify, and perfect

• After listing all the advantages and disadvantages and checking our first prototype, I might need to discuss with my team to come up with a better design as well as the better use of materials (based on what the customer want)
• So as a group, we have come up with new design, we will:
  • Use wood to create the lid of the machine
  • Use iron to create the handle
  • Use plastic (by 3D printing) to be the foundation of the machine
  • Use iron to be the whole

Post-implementation review and assessment

• After we all come up the new design, we will distribute our product (for free) to as many people as we can in order for them to test out and let them give us feedback so that we can make more changes until we need our customer’s criteria. Moreover, if there are any changes toward our design, we will go back and check some steps of our design process and see if there are something we could improve from.