The Big Bang Infographic

Here is a link to an infographic I created to show some of the early steps of our universe.

https://my.visme.co/view/g7q0m4k6-timeline-infographic

I used Visme along with its AI tool to create the layout and to generate some ideas for text. I found that the AI was helpful for some of the groundwork, but Visme had a lack of templates that fit what I was going for, which was sort of a timeline. So I had to add and adjust a lot of textboxes to better suit the style I wanted. The text it gave also wasn’t the best, so I asked the AI to regenerate a title. I cut off some of it as it was too long for an infographic. Also, the text at the bottom was pretty lackluster and was closer to see above for information rather than providing any additional information, so I hand edited that to better suit the theme of the timeline and the questions I wanted people to ponder after finishing my poster.

The Industrial Design Process

Anyone can design a product, but what makes an industrial designer is their ability to make a good product. An industrial designer’s ability to create a good product starts with the design process. Often products are made that are low quality, dont function as intended, or only work for a small subset of people; the design process ensures this is not the case. The design process is an iterative process followed by industrial designers that ensures a final product is functional, aesthetically pleasing, and meets the needs of its intended users.

What are the steps of the design process?

The design process of any product begins with the research and analysis phase. In this phase the designer will conduct research and gather information about the intended user, market trends, and the competition. This involves analyzing customer needs, studying existing products, and identifying gaps in the market. To do this the designer will do multiple research methods, including but not limited to analyzing web articles, giving online surveys, speaking with professionals in the intended field, and testing existing solutions. 

After the target audience and their needs have been identified designers will move on to the ideation phase. The goal of the ideation phase is to quickly generate many ideas for how to solve the problem. This can involve brainstorming sessions, sketching, and low-fidelity prototyping. The goal of this phase is to quickly get as many ideas out as possible. Often designers will try to think as far out of the box as possible so they may come up with the most creative solution possible, even if it seems like it might not work. The time for making sure 100% of the idea is feasible is for later in the process. The goal of ideation is creativity and it is important that the designer doesn’t limit themselves to solutions they know will work. 

The next step is concept development and refinement. Once a promising idea has been identified, designers will begin to develop the idea into a working concept. This is done through a combination of sketching, prototyping, and CAD modeling. The goal of this phase is to take the ideas created in the ideation phase and turn them into a real working prototype. Designers will make many different prototypes throughout this process, some focusing on the overall aesthetic and ergonomic factors, others will look at materials, colors, and finish texture, and others will focus on the nuanced details such as how and where a hinge will attach to the main body of a plastic part. At each point in this phase when a prototype has been made designers will do user testing in order to identify what aspects of the design are working and what aspects aren’t working. This user testing will provide valuable information as to what changes to make as they are refining their design. 

Once a final design has been chosen the designer builds the product in a digital software, factoring in all manufacturing considerations that must be made. This involves selecting the right materials, processes, and manufacturing partners to ensure high-quality production. Often small runs of the final production model will be made, so that final tests of the function, ergonomics, and durability can be run. 

Finally, the product is launched, and user testing is conducted to ensure that it meets the needs of the intended audience. Feedback from users is used to refine the product further and make any necessary improvements, although, if the design process is followed properly there should be little need for improvements. 

Overall, the goal of the design process is to identify the absolute best solution to a user’s problem. In order to get to the best solution, you have to go through many bad solutions first. This is why the iterative design process is so important, it provides a roadmap for the journey through all the bad solutions and guides designers to the best solution. 

What could be improved about the process?

I don’t think there is much that could be done to improve the design process. The beauty of the design process is that although it is specific in the phases, it is flexible in all other aspects. Designers can complete each step in whatever way they feel is best and can move back and forth between phases as needed. A good product is defined by the people that use it and the design is a roadmap for identifying those people and identifying key ways to help them. No two design problems are the same and if anything was added to the design process then we would risk limiting creativity, thereby limiting the potential for finding truly the best solution.

-Dustin Rider

The Engineering Design Process

The engineering design process is the steps followed by engineers of all disciplines when trying to find a solution to a problem. The steps are laid out in a way that makes the overall process effective and efficient. The process is as follows:

Engineering Design Process

The process begins with identifying a problem that you want to find a solution to. Once you define the problem, you must do research and explore what is already out in the world in relation to the problem. If there are already existing solutions to the problem, can you find a solution that is better? This then leads to the design stage in which solutions are brainstormed. In order to find the best possible solution, a lot of ideas need to be thought up/designed. Eventually, you settle on the one that is best, usually determined with a decision matrix. Once the idea is designed, it’s time to build the idea, and then after it’s built it gets tested. After testing, the process could be finished and the solution could be deemed final, or there is another possible step: making it better. The solution can be tweaked and modified slightly if there are flaws that are discovered during testing. If this is the case, the solution goes back to the design stage for these changes to be implemented. The solution will then continue to cycle from design through make it better until it reaches a testing stage in which it is determined that there are no further changes to be made.

Although the process is usually followed in the order pictured above, there is some flexibility. For example, some steps may need to be repeated a few times before moving on to the next one. A situation in which this may be necessary would be during the create stage. If the build for the chosen design doesn’t go as planned, that step may need to be restarted until success is reached.

If I had to improve this process, I would add a phase for feedback that would entail people being allowed to test out the solution and providing their feedback on it. The feedback would then be used to modify the design if necessary, and the feedback process would be repeated until the engineering team is satisfied with the feedback they receive about the solution.

-Juliana Gentile

The Engineering Design Process

Although I have not had much experience with any of the specific technical processes in my future field of mechanical engineering, the one process that I do have a lot of experience with is the engineering design process. This process is essentially the “recipe” for creating a new product or system, or redesigning an existing one. Most recently, I used this process in a course last semester to design and build a “robot monkey” device that was to climb up a doorframe without any assistance. I know this sounds quite simple, but it became much more difficult when we were given a box of paper clips, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, and two motors, and told to make it happen! My robot had to be built according to a long list of detailed specifications, so the design process significantly helped me to organize and adhere to these specifications in order to succeed in the challenge. I also have experience using this design process in the professional field during an internship at a large HVAC and fire suppression company. I was able to work with a team of interns to design and build a completely new product, and with few requirements for the project, this gave us a very wide range of possibilities. In this case, the design process helped to encourage creative ideas and organize them into a feasible project. 

The design process begins with organizing a list of any design specifications, project criteria, constraints, and customer needs. This will be referred to many times throughout the process to ensure that all requirements are met, so it is important that the list is organized and easy to access. Next, a functional decomposition should be created. This is the process of breaking down the different functions that occur in order for the final product or system to operate. Once complete, a functional decomposition should explain each function necessary for the product to achieve its final goal, as well as highlighting any materials, information, or energy needed to complete these functions. Next is the brainstorming stage, where the designer will come up with as many ideas as possible for each of the functions determined in the functional decomposition. It is important to note that each idea should be for a single function, rather than the entire product as a whole, as this will make it much easier to develop a complete design. The next step is concept selection, where the designer will develop a set of criteria according to the project specifications, and evaluate each idea using these criteria. Using the various ideas that scored the highest evaluations, the designer will then work to develop multiple different designs for complete products, likely using different combinations of ideas for each function. Then, using the initial list of specifications, and usually some instincts, one complete design will be selected to move on to the next stage, which is everyone’s favorite: prototyping. The selected design will be built as a prototype and will be tested several times, in order to determine which functions are working properly and which are not. This brings us to everyone’s least favorite stage: troubleshooting. The designer will have to keep redesigning, rebuilding, and retesting the functions that are not operating correctly until they work as intended. Once the prototype is operating as desired, the final product can then be built, which completes the design process.

Throughout my experiences with following the engineering design process, I have found it to be quite effective and helpful, so there are not many changes I would make to improve it. One suggestion, however, would be to work with others as much as possible. It is especially helpful during the brainstorming, concept selection, and troubleshooting stages to bounce around ideas and take advantage of more brain power in order to come up with better solutions. Another suggestion would be to revisit different steps as many times as necessary throughout the process. This is definitely not a linear process, but rather it is an iterative one, as you usually have to revisit the brainstorming stage while trying to troubleshoot issues with prototypes. Personally, I sometimes start projects by brainstorming entire designs for finished products, and then work backwards to follow the steps outlined above. While this order is effective for me with some projects, it is not the best approach with all of them, so the designer definitely has to use their discretion in regards to the nature of the project and personal preference in order to determine the best way to follow the engineering design process.

~ Sarah DaSilva

Selecting Light Fixtures For a Project

So, in terms of processes in my future field, this one was kind of tough to think about in this way. I suppose you could call everything that we do a process, but it is not a process that ever stays the same. My current career field is in Electrical Design for Residential, Commercial, and Industrial applications. This can span a large range of things, including more than just buildings, but this is typically where my work lies.

The “process” that I get into the habit of doing a lot would be lighting design. This is not only because people tend to give me a lot of lighting design work, but that I really enjoy it. In general, you always have to select a fixture based on the application that you are implementing it for. For example, if you are installing a fixture in a 20′ car/van wash bay, you will want to use an IP67 rated LED fixture with either surface or pendant mounting brackets, and likely a high lumen package, so long as you want the light coming from the ceiling. If you wanted it on the wall, you would select a different type of mounting and a different type of distribution that would give you your desired path of luminescence.

If I had to define this into a process however, I would likely do as follows:

• Define the application(s) for the light fixture
• Create a list of different applications, as well as different mounting preferences and ceiling heights (this will determine how many different types of fixtures you will need)
• Explore the IES guidelines for Foot-candle (FC) minimums and recommendations per application (Ex. you will have different amounts of light on a basketball court than you will in an office building, than you would in a bathroom. Even within the same building, it is not atypical to have at least 5-10 different types of fixtures given the different applications)
• Use the floor plan for the building to design a model in a lighting analysis software (to see how the light will actually travel and reflect in the space)
• Find the appropriate IES files (Files that contain the photometric data for light fixtures) and define them within the model of whatever lighting software you are using. (Not all lighting softwares will use this kind of file, but I’ve found most do)
• Populate your model with the fixtures and compare back to the IES guidelines and prior knowledge

This is a very rough outline of the process, as it can get very specific when it comes to things like the individual aspects of every kind of fixture and the different light loss factors and complexity of modeling, but this gives a good starting point to picking fixtures for the first time. In general, you will want to refer to codes and guidelines for designing lighting in any space because, not only will you be designing within the restrictions of the code, but the recommendations given are considered widely to be best practice.

I don’t particularly have a good answer for how to improve a process like this, mainly because every step is relatively necessary to designing good lighting systems. I will say that, after a good amount of years working with these kinds of designs, you might be able to skip the modeling phase. The ONLY reason I would ever recommend this is if the project budget does not allow for the time to model it, because even with a lot of experience, it is definitely best practice to model and show everything you can (within reason).

By: Jonathan J Walton