Laser Kites

 

As part of Product Engineering Process (2.009) I worked with a team of 20 other engineers as well as 10 consultants to develope a novel toy product Laser Kites.

 

In 2.009, Product Engineering Processes, students work in large teams of approximately 15 to 19 individuals to design and build working alpha prototypes of new products. Students learn about creativity, product design, working within a budget, and gain unifying engineering experience. 

The effort spans the early phases of product development, including: opportunity identification; generating ideas; gathering customer and market data; selecting ideas, devising concepts and building sketch models; building and testing mockups; customer evaluation of mockups; embodiment design; and construction of a high quality functioning alpha prototype. 

The large teams must work effectively to realize this task, so students also learn about group dynamics, team roles and management, consensus building, and the value of communication.

 

Each year the teams work on projects unified by a theme (see the theme gallery for themes of previous years). At the end of the course, teams present their work to a live audience of ~1300 practicing product designers, entrepreneurs, academics, and classmates, as well as a very significant webcast audience.

 

2.009 is about experiencing the process of developing new product ideas, improving design skills, and learning strategies/processes for successful innovation. Key goals follow.

 

• Improve creative-thinking capability.

• Improve ability to identify the significant product opportunities and to develop appropriate solutions through a structured product development process.

• Improve expertise in constructing models for reasoning about design alternatives. These include estimations, sketches, sketch models, spreadsheets, geometric models, mockups and prototypes.

• Improve engineering expertise and proficiency in techniques for building high quality product models and prototypes.

• Learn about and experience structured methods for working in large teams on a project that requires teamwork to be successful.

• Improve presentation skills using a wide variety of media.

• Develop an understanding of, and enthusiasm for, the engineering activities involved with designing a new product.

• Develop an appreciation for the significance of societal contributions that can be made as a technological innovator.