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Revision as of 11:58, 31 August 2007

Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Mechanical Engineering

In this course, students will gain hands-on, practical experience applying engineering principles, theories, thought processes, and problem-solving approaches to the design and prototyping of a physical product. Students will develop skills for working in teams, working with open-ended problems, and making appropriate engineering assumptions. Students are expected to research the topic area, identify opportunities and design criteria, generate creative concepts, synthesize detailed design of the concept, analyze the design on a number of criteria to make improvements, and prototype and communicate the final solution.

Topics

While most courses in the mechanical engineering curriculum focus on structured transfer of theoretical knowledge in analysis of mechanical phenomena, this course aims to provide students with a chance to build complimentary experiential knowledge in application and synthesis. Topics covered include product development and design process, stakeholder research, social and cultural awareness, project planning, value opportunity analysis, concept generation techniques, design selection matrices, prototyping, product dissection, intellectual property, quality function deployment, professionalism, ethics, design for manufacturing and assembly, design for environment, life cycle analysis, failure mode and effects analysis, computer aided design and engineering drawings, appropriate tolerance selection, optimization, machine components, industrial design and economic analysis.

Course Website

Website for those enrolled in the course.
Password needed.
http://www.cmu.edu/blackboard/

Projects

The links below contain a history of projects with links to project wiki reports.

Fall 2007

This semester, each design team will select and obtain an existing mechanical product or system. We will spend approximately the first one-third of the semester analyzing the design of the existing product. Each team will then use this knowledge to create a new product to address an opportunity unaddressed by the existing product and/or make significant changes to the existing product to improve it.

Teams:

Spring 2007

The spring 2007 theme was analysis and redesign of an existing product or mechanical system chosen by student teams under a set of selection guidelines. Each team was assigned to study the design of the existing product, identify unmet needs, and then either redesign the existing product or design a new product to address an unmet need. The links below show study of the existing product. Some links also show new product design, but many of the new designs were completed offline because of intellectual property concerns.

Projects Included:

• Ceiling-mounted bicycle lift
• Cordless drill
• Staple gun
• Automatic card shuffler
• Automatic can opener
• Rotating tie rack
• Paper shredder
• Car jack
• Bicycle light generator
• Paintball marker
• Inkjet printer
• Active climbing cam.