HELPING STUDENTS BUILD: PROTOTYPING KIT FOR STUDENT DESIGN. Abstract. Introduction. UGS 302 Class

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1 HELPING STUDENTS BUILD: PROTOTYPING KIT FOR STUDENT DESIGN Austin Talley Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Texas at Austin Session T2A-3 Abstract Planning for students to build in the classroom can feel like a daunting task at times. How can you have the students build prototypes in class? This paper focus on a prototype design kit that was created to empower students in a freshmen innovation class to start prototyping during class time. The kit s design gives the students an experience with using easily obtainable off the shelf parts to create a working prototype in a single hour experience. The kit design was evaluated through the quality of the prototypes the students created and by an end-of-course survey that asked the students about their usage of the prototyping kit. This paper provides the background on how the kit has been successfully used in the past and documentation of the kit to assist others in creating similar kits. Introduction Having students build projects in the class can be an expensive and time-consuming undertaking. This paper focuses on a prototyping kit that was used for two years in a freshman innovation course. The kit contains building materials for students to explore many ways of creating physical solutions to solve a problem. The kit was also designed for allowing individuals with minimal building experience to have success in making a prototype. This study has these two objectives: to establish if students are able to successfully build working prototypes in one class period with the kit and to determine what components of the kit can be removed and still allow the students to create innovative prototypes. UGS 302 Class The prototyping kit was developed as a part of the curriculum development of Undergraduate Studies 302: The Engineered World: Products and Innovations. This optional course is an introduction for first-year undergraduate students to the concepts of innovation through the design process. The intent of this undergraduate studies course is to explore the exciting world of engineered products, from the perspectives of history, current markets, and future forecasting. The Engineered World: Products and Innovations focuses this exploration on innovations as they have changed the landscape of nations and cultures, especially in the United States. The Engineered World: Products and Innovations engages students through using the

2 engineering design process. For this course, the design process is presented as a series of innovation steps, as represented in Fig. 1. The kit was introduced to the class during the discussion of the design process as an in-class hands-on exercise of prototyping to solve a simple real world problem. For the exercise, the students used the kits to solve a problem a user with assistive needs might have. During a single class period the students designed and fabricated their prototypes in the classroom. The prototyping kits were also supplied to the students to assist them in creating their main out-of-class design project. For this larger project, however, the students were not restricted to the items in the kit. The prototyping kit is used in the class for the realization part of the design process. Innovation Problem (Innovation Journal) Understanding the Problem Mission Statement Customer Needs Specifications Concept Development Create List of Activities (birth to death) Create Black Box and list of key functions Concept Development Part 2 Generate Concepts Brainstorming Mind Mapping TIPS Transformational Design Morphological Analysis Design by Analogy Historical Innovators Method Develop Prototype Realization Model Sustainability Infer Societal Impacts Fig. 1: Innovation Process The product design process is based on engineering design research [1-4]. The course syllabus was laid out to align with the students learning about the design process. The students start with understanding the problem through an innovation journal. By recording in the journal, problems they encountered in their every day life, they collect ideas for problem they needed to solve. Next the students focus on understanding the problem they have identified. Once the students had scoped the problem s parameters, they focus on techniques to generate concepts that could solve the problem. The course culminates with the students in teams of two prototyping the innovation. Prototyping Kit The goal of the prototyping kit was to create a set of materials that was usable in the classroom, with minimized intimidation for students with little previous experience, while still allowing the students to create as robust and realistic of a prototype as possible. Many design projects use

3 programing with microprocessor or rapid prototyping printers, which were beyond the limited scope of this project [5-7]. A large number of hands-on build projects use LEGO kit to give building experience [8-12]. They provide a wonderful learning experience but were not appropriate for this course due to the emphasis that the project needs to leave the students with the impressions that they could use and integrate any off-the-shelf material in the project. The kit was made up of everyday items that are easily obtained at a hardware store, office supply store, and electronics store. The kit derives from past research of K-12 science and math kits [13-14]. The kits cost fifty dollars each and break down of the items in kit is shown in Fig. 2 and the Appendix A. Electric Wire Foam core Board PVC Pipe Battery Holder Battery Engineering Paper Card stock Wooden Dowels Cedar Wood Right Angle Pencil Ruler PVC Pipe Connectors Electrical Tape Breadboard Motor Electrical Switch Potentiometer Wood Glue Rubber Bands Glue Stick Duck Tape Nails Masking Tape String Mouse Trap Tongue Depressors Grocery Bag Fig. 2: Items in Prototyping Kit. The primary structural building material in the kit is PVC pipe and wood. Plastic and wood were chosen because of the student s familiarity while at the same time allowing them to build sturdy structures. In the classroom, the students were able to cut the wood with a simple miter box and saw setup. With similar ease, the PVC was cut with a PVC hand cutter that is shown in Fig. 3. These two cutting methods were well received by the students.

4 Fig. 3: PVC Hand Cutter Prototyping Kit in Use The prototyping kit was used for two years as part of the fall freshman design course. In both instances, the projects were done in teams of two or three students and were done solely in class as a hands-on prototyping exercise. The timing of this project correlated with discussion of the prototyping section of the design process. As part of the in-class exercise the students were asked to use the items in the kit to create a device that would allow an individual in a wheel chair to use a non-modified ATM without assistance. The students were tasked with addressing two objectives; allowing the user to inset and retrieve their ATM card and to press the buttons on the ATM from a sitting position. In the second year, the students were given the option of building a prototype to assist a user with an ATM or digital camera. The second prompt asked the students to prototype a device that would assist a user in framing and taking a photograph with a standard digital camera. Due to the timing and availability of room space, the construction of the prototypes was done in a standard university classroom. Figure 4 shows students working in class on the ATM project in the first year. Fig 4: Students Prototyping in Class

5 The students were given one class period (one hour) to complete the projects. The students at the beginning of the next class period presented their prototypes to the class. Fig. 5 shows the six prototypes that were created by the students during the first year. In 2010 a mixture of digital camera and ATM prototypes were created as shown in Fig. 6. In both years all the groups were able to create working prototypes that meet the project s objective of enabling a user with assistive needs to accomplish the designed task independently. In 2009 all six groups made working ATM prototypes, in 2010 the students were given a choice, five groups made digital camera assistive prototypes and one group made the ATM assistive prototype. In all groups, the students were able to demonstrate the working prototypes during the next class period. During the class period several students expressed apprehension about cutting or the wood or PVC. The students had never seen a PVC pipe cutter before, but by the end of the class period commented on how easy it was to use the PVC cutter. Many of the students used it to cut both PVC pipe and the wood. Both years many of the students expressed that they had not worked with PVC pipe yet, five of the six groups used the pipe as the primary structural element in the prototypes. None of the students used any of the electrical parts in the kit for their prototype in 2009 and two of the six in 2010 groups used some electrical component in the kit with limited success. In 2009, the fourteen students in the class were asked in the end-of-course survey how they felt about elements of the course. The survey consisted of 28 questions that were collected through the use of an electronic survey system [15]. Two of the survey questions directly address the prototyping kit. The first question asked the students if they enjoyed using the kit to make the ATM card retriever. As shown in Fig. 7, the students overwhelmingly agreed or strongly agreed they enjoyed using the kit. As part of the course, the students were tasked with inventing a product and following the design process for the product through the alpha prototype of invention. The students were given the prototype kit to use with the project, but they were allowed to use any material they wanted. The majority of the students strongly agreed that the prototyping kit assisted them in making their final project prototype, shown in Fig. 8. Three teams choose to make their final project prototype out of other materials and did not use the prototyping kit.

6 Fig 5: 2009 Student ATM Project Prototypes

7 Fig 6: 2010 Student ATM and Digital Camera Project Prototypes

8 Fig. 7: Students Response to: I enjoyed using prototyping design kit to make the ATM car retriever Fig. 8: Students Response to: I used the prototyping design kit I was given to assist me in making my project prototype

9 Conclusions Overall, the prototyping kit was successful in this course. All the student groups were able to successfully build working prototypes in one class period. The very limited usage of the electrical components in the kit suggests, they could be removed from the kit and still allow the students to successfully build innovative devices. Removing the electrical parts from the kit would also drop the overall Prototyping kit price from 50 dollars to 30 dollars. Table A in Appendix A shows the details of the kit costs. The students prolific use of the PVC pipe and positive comments about using the PVC suggest that future kits should include more PVC components in the kit. The high quality of the prototypes produced by the students as a part of the course encouraged the faculty to use this kit in future courses. This analysis suggests that the two study objectives were meet. Further study is being conducted at a local community college using a modified version of the prototyping kit that does not have the electrical components in the spring of This prototyping kit has the potential to be effective in many types of classroom environments. References [1] Talley, A., Schmidt, K., Wood, K., and Crawford, R., Understanding the Effects of Active Learning in Action: What Happens When the New Wears Off in Teacher Training, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June , Pittsburgh, PA. Search at [2] Jensen, D. J., Weaver, J., Wood, K. L., Linsey, J., and Wood, J., Techniques to Enhance Concept Generation and Develop Creativity, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 14-17, 2009, Austin, TX. Search at [3] Linsey, J., Wood, K., and Markman, A., Increasing Innovation: Presentation and Evaluation of the WordTree Design-by-Analogy Method, Proceedings of the ASME Design Theory and Methodology Conference, August 3-6, 2008, New York, NY. [4] Wood, K.L., Jensen, D., and Singh, V., Innovations in Design Through Transformation: A Fundamental Study of transformation Principles, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, 131, (8), pp thru , (2009). [5] Johnson, R., Smart Pallet Design using Optoelectronics and Programmable Microcontrollers, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 20-23, 2004 Salt Lake City, UT. Search at [6] Crockett, R., Koch, M., and Walsh, D.,A, Freshman Design Experience Using RPT, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 20-23, 2004 Salt Lake City, UT. Search at [7] Jensen, D., Randell, C., Feland, J., and Bowe, M., A Study of Rapid Prototyping for Use in Undergraduate Design Education Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 15-19, 2002 Montreal, Canada. Search at [8] Carberry, A. and M. Hynes. Underwater Lego Robotics: Testing, Evaluation & Redesign, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June Honolulu, Hawaii. Search at [9] Jensen, D., Wood, K., Crawford, R., and Crowe, K., An Evaluation of the DTEACh Robolab Summer Institute for 2004 Assessment of Instructional and Hands-on Learning Correlated with MBTI Types, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 12-15, Portland, Oregon, Search at

10 [10] Hynes, M., Impact of Teaching Engineering Concepts Through Creating LEGO-Based Assistive Devices, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June Honolulu, Hawaii. Search at [11] Pomalaza-RAEZ, C. and Groff, B. Retention 101: Where Robots Go...Students Follow, Journal of Engineering Education, 92 (1) P85-90, (2003). [12] Rencis, J., Jolley, O., Cobb, E., and Hagglund, R., A Fun and Challenging Engineering Dynamics Project Using a Lego Construction Set Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 22-25, 2003 Nashville, TN. Search at [13] Crawford, R.H., Wood, K.L., Fowler, M., and Norrell, J., An Engineering Design Curriculum for the Elementary Grades," ASEE Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 83, No. 2, pp , (1994). [14] Vattam, S.S. and J.L. Kolodner. Design-based science learning: important challenges and how technology can make a difference. in 7th International Conference on Learning sciences. June 27 July Bloomington, IN.

11 Appendix A Table A: Prototyping Kit Parts List Description Vendor Item # Quantity Price Total Total per kit 1 Foam core board Office Depot $30.66 $30.66 $ Tongue depressors Office Depot $2.53 $2.53 $ Duct tape Office Depot $3.63 $36.30 $ Rubber bands Office Depot $3.50 $7.00 $ Glue Office Depot $1.46 $14.60 $ Glue stick Office Depot $5.22 $5.22 $ Masking tape Office Depot $2.11 $21.10 $ Trash bags Office Depot $9.79 $9.79 $ Zip lock bags Office Depot $5.10 $5.10 $ Card stock Office Depot $8.18 $8.18 $ Knife Office Depot $2.19 $21.90 $ Engineering paper Office Depot $4.50 $4.50 $ Ruler Office Depot $0.33 $3.30 $ Tight angle Office Depot $3.74 $37.40 $ Pencils Office Depot $2.83 $2.83 $ Grocery tote Office Depot $0.99 $11.88 $ PVC Pipe Home Depot 1 (4 ft) 4 $1.30 $5.20 $ PVC T-Connectors Home Depot 2 $2.25 $4.50 $ PVC Elbows Home Depot 2 $2.25 $4.50 $ PVC End caps Home Depot 20 $0.30 $6.00 $ Wood Square dowls Home Depot 10 $0.99 $9.90 $ Wood dowels Home Depot 3 (1 ft) 10 $0.99 $9.90 $ Mouse Trap Home Depot 5 $1.97 $9.85 $ String Home Depot 10 $1.99 $19.90 $ Spring Home Depot 2 $3.99 $7.98 $ Electrical Wires Radioshack 2 $6.99 $13.98 $ Breadboard Radioshack 10 $6.99 $69.90 $ V battery connection Radioshack 2 $2.99 $5.98 $ Electrical tape Radioshack 5 $0.99 $4.95 $ V battery Radioshack 10 $2.99 $29.90 $ Potentiometer Radioshack 10 $1.99 $19.90 $ LED Radioshack 10 $1.49 $14.90 $ Motor Radioshack 10 $2.99 $29.90 $ Switch Radioshack 10 $1.99 $19.90 $1.99 Kit (no electical parts) Kit (all parts) Total Total per kit $ $30.00 $ $50.93