Students develop their understanding of their client/user to insure that they are designing to the client's needs and desires.
Students create a design criteria checklist to make certain that their design meets the needs of the user.
Understand
In the Understand section, you should identify each specific requirement that the engineered solution must meet. Requirements can be features that the solution must have, such as wheels, a handle, or an amount of profit, but also can be factors that restrict the solution as well, such as weight, price or who the user will be. These are also called Constraints. (Note: Understanding both the client and the user is important, and is part of this stage of the EDP. This is analogous to the Empathize stage of design thinking, but the EDP Understand stage also includes a concrete identification of all requirements the solution must meet. Engineers come back to this stage repeatedly as they identify additional requirements during the design process.)
Understand: Defining Design Requirements
Students should open the Understand section of the EDPL. They can use the Navigation pull down at the top of the page.
The requirements list is a list of characteristics that the design must have (criteria), as well as a list of the constraints that are placed on the design.
Students should refer to information from their research to fill out the requirements about client and design preferences.
They should use appropriate construction standards and codes to determine dimensions and design elements for their tiny house
All requirements should identify the source of the requirement. In this case, it could be from a client interview, the RFP, market research, or a test result.
Possible narrative:
On this page you will create a documented list of all of the requirements that your solution should meet, based on the needs of the client. You should document each design requirement with an appropriate source that indicates where that requirement came from. This will provide a dated list as you add requirements later in the process.
What are the requirements that must be met by your solution?
What are the desires or challenges of your client/customer?
What are the technical requirements (e.g. dimensions that must be considered)?
Later in the design process, students will test their prototypes against all listed requirements.
Note: The reason for dating each entry is that the list can be updated if needed.
This project provides an opportunity for teacher to drive research or instruction/experimentation with various energy sources. If you have specific outcomes to achieve, such as focusing on solar power generation, then use this project as an opening to deliver the necessary content. Or provide the students with a list of standards and objectives and have them perform their own research and document how they have completed each standard.
There is a great deal of flexibility available for this project. If the students are working from a familiarity with each type of energy generation then using that knowledge to create judgment criteria and deciding which one to use for their product during the subsequent ideation and evaluation phase is ideal. Or the project can be used to focus and dig deep into one or two types of renewable energy.
Sample Lessons/Activities (outside resources; links take you to activities on another website)