Assignment - Reflection

Ibrahim Khalil Hussaini (4241606)

December 8, 2014

Engineering is all about teamwork. Coming together, collaborating , brainstorming are

things that end up with great products. I realized that group work on its own is not enough
to produce great products. In order to have productive group work, its important to have the
right circumstances in place for the group work to go well. I often felt there were three types
of people in our group. The first were the hard workers. They put in all the eort and take
on all the responsibility in order to get a good final product. The second were the people that
were helpful but were not doing any of the heavy mental lifting. Finally there were people that
were just along for the ride to put their name on the final product (Avery, Walker, and Murphy
2001).
We use control in our everyday life and we dont think of it that way but we have objectives
and we have things that happen or performance and we compare the performance to our
objectives and make changes if necessary. Planning is getting things together or where we want
them to be. You are not going to get exactly what you want with your objectives or goal so
you need to define an acceptable range of variation. Upper limit, objective or goal and lower
limit. The management style i used was management by exception. I stepped in only when we
were too high or too low. We used dierent sources within the course and that the idea of a
balanced scored approach to control (Flamholtz 1996).
Solar boat design is not about self realization, it belongs to a team and it has to achieve a
certain function. The customer should get a feeling that the boat he is racing is developed for
him which then pushes us to develop new technology. My task is to develop our weakness to our
taste. People have dierent wishes and we are trying to develop a solar boat which fits to the
needs of customers in the future, a boat which has less impact on nature, and somehow more
impact on the customers without disturbing the environment (Avery, Walker, and Murphy
2001).
With positive interdependence, group work needs to be designed so that every member is
important. The activity cannot be completed without contributions from every single member.
By embedding this element, it says to each member that they are important and they need to
contribute. We implemented this by developing chosen roles as well as dividing of resources
unevenly. Each member would have their own piece of information that they need to learn.
You may be an engineer but when you work in a field, you work with people of all dierent
works and varieties. So your are not alone, and it is a partnership that helps. At the end of
the day, you make a change in ever ones life weather it is big or small and by knowing that i
hope i would just aspire. It is a field where persistence pays o in a big way (Avery, Walker,
and Murphy 2001).
Poor leaders make today poor for everyone by using coercive power. Transactional leaders
make today better by rewarding good performance. In contrast, transformational leaders are
focused on making tomorrow better. Firstly, i created a nobel vision to work towards that
inspires the team. Authenticity was also important. I had to show my group members i
was authentic in the commitment to the mission and not just as a personal gain. I believe
2

my integrity inspired the team to take action. I had a growth mindset in place to cultivate
my team personally and professionally by investing time and energy knowing that eventually,
our eort will bear fruit. I also recognised each individuals eort and performance. With
respect to creativity, i encouraged group members to develop ideas, work with flare and embrace
originality. I also allowed measured risks which helps to foster a culture of innovation. Our
team was constantly being transformed for the better (Robbins, Stuart-Kotze, and Coulter
2003).
The group could have been better managed by using team-building exercises to build a more
cohesive group. Members should be emboldened to verbalise how theyd relish to collaborate
as well as getting acquainted with each other. Realistically, there are bad behaviours to avoid
and so a discussion should have taken place for them to realise what they need from the group
to be at their most efficient. To create a group sense of identity, we should have picked a group
name and logo which would have helped create a sense of identity for the group, which would
have in turn fostered the groups commitment and need from their members in order to succeed.
Furthermore, we should have provided some class time for meetings as we are all busy outside
these hours. In group work, it is very important to come to meetings with an agenda. It is
also important for the group to realise that significant amount of work can be done in short a
amount of time (Weimer 2014).
People over the years have tried to come up with dierent definitions of what design is
and again, they all have dierences and things in common. When talking about design, it has
always reminded me about the poem about the blind man and the elephant. One blind man
grabbed the elephants trunk and thought it was like a snake. The second blind man grabbed the
elephants trunk and said it is awfully like a sphere. The blind man who grabbed the elephants
ears thought it was like a fan while the one who grabbed the elephant leg thought it was very
much like a tree. The one who touched the elephants side thought it was a wall. And the blind
man who grabbed the elephants tail thought it was very much like a rope. Of-course, all of
them were right and none of them were wrong. So what we understand really is that design
is a multiphase thing and you really need to understand multiple aspects to really engage in
design.
(ABET 2014) defines engineering design to be the process of devising a system, component,
or process to meet desired needs. It is a decision-making process (often iterative), in which
the basic science and mathematics and engineering sciences are applied to convert resources
optimally to meet a stated objective. Among the fundamental elements of the design process
are the establishment of objectives and criteria, synthesis, analysis, construction, testing and
evaluation.
If you go from an idea through the design process, and to a final outcome, it is not always
clear when you start what your final outcome is going to be successful . It is going to be
a process that clarifies the vision over time. There are tools available to the engineers or
the ones who manage the team which clarify the vision. It is important to manage your most
3

valuable recourse which is time. You are always short on time. A block diagram would basically
breakdown a project into its functional units and this is an art as well as a science.
The project manager really helps facilitate everything concerning the design project. A
project manager makes the project flow, communicates with people, makes sure people, the
engineers on the design team, as well as customers and management or anybody else involved
in the design project really understand where the project is. One can think of the project
manager as balancing the cost, schedules and the specifications of the project (kridnix 2014a).
The project manager is also responsible for documenting the teams project by management
records, technical records, project records, and notes from project management meeting and
project reports. Another unction of the project manager is to organise and attend regular
meetings. Furthermore, He is also responsible for archiving information in case information
is needed later as well as acquirer components and equipment to facilitate the work of the
engineers. Finally, they attend research and prototype demonstrations (Hales and Gooch 2004).
Another person you may have on a design project is a lead engineer. This is a person that
has a technically big picture unlike the big picture of the project manager that looks at the
deadlines of getting the project to completion. A lead engineer would research interconnections
between blocks on the block diagram making sure everything talks to one another, obtain
measurements of signals from each block so they know everything is unto specifications, and
add technical information on the interconnections between blocks to the teams block diagram so
everybody knows what their inputs and outputs is. A lead engineer can also specify types and
locations of mechanical equipment at each stage of the teams project because as you will find in a
mechanical project, connectors are going to be your biggest headache and there is a huge field in
engineering devoted to choosing and designing connectors. They also prepare system integration
demonstrations, and of course, write characteristics and performance characterisation sections
of the teams data sheet when it comes time to communicate the final results of the project
(kridnix 2014b).
I believe in intuition. I think thats the dierence between a designer and an engineer.
I make a distinction between engineers and engineering designers. An engineering designer is
just as creative as any other sort of designer (Cross 2008).
In solving problems, i have a tendency to utilise a procedure of methodically attempting to
comprehend the issue, to search for fundamental principles which would empower me to create
an ideal solution. Interestingly, designers have a tendency to make beginning investigations
and afterward recommend a mixed bag of conceivable arrangements until they discovered one
that was great, or at any rate attractive (Cross 2008).
I also dont tend to use guesses about the arrangement ideas as the method for creating an
understanding of the issue. Designers force an essential generator onto the issue to thin the
inquiry space and create early arrangement ideas. This essential generator is normally focused
around a hard confined set of imperatives or arrangement of potential outcomes got from the
outline issue (Cross 2008).
4

Since the design problem is itself not well characterised and badly organised, a key peculiarity of outline portrayals is that they aid problem structuring through the making of
arrangement endeavours. Portrayals fuse drawings of speculative arrangement ideas as well
as numbers, images and content, as the planner relates what he knows of the outline issue to
what is developing as an issue. Drawing empowers investigation of the issue space and the
arrangement space to move ahead together, helping the creator to meet on a matching issue
arrangement pair. Problem and solution co-evolve in the design process (Cross 2008).
Designers utilization of portrayals accordingly provides for us some extensive understanding
into the way of outline speculation and the determination of configuration issues. These issues
cant be expressed sufficiently expressly such that arrangements can be gotten straightforwardly
from them. The planner needs to take the activity in discovering an issue beginning stage and
recommending experimental arrangement zones. Issue and solution are then both created in
parallel, here and there prompting an imaginative redefinition of the issue, or to an answer that
lies outside the limits of what was formerly thought to be conceivable (Cross 2008).
A proper utilisation of the solution-focused methodology to design is something that appears
to create with experience. Experienced designers have the capacity draw on their insight into
past models in their field of outline, and they additionally appear to have taken in the estimation
of quick issue investigation through arrangement guess. In examination, fledgling originators
can regularly get to be hindered in endeavours to comprehend the issue before they begin
producing arrangements. For them, assembling information about the issue is o and on again
simply a substitute movement for really doing any outline work (Cross 2008).
Solution centred systems are along these lines maybe the most ideal method for handling
design problems, which are by nature poorly characterised. Keeping in mind the end goal to
adapt to the vulnerability of badly characterised issues, the originator needs to have the selfassurance to characterise, rethink and change the issue as given, in the light of arrangements
that rise in the very procedure of outlining. Individuals who favour the sureness of organised
generally characterised issues will never admire the pleasure of being a creator! (Cross 2008)
On the other hand, amateur designers are likewise often found to wind up focused on
specific arrangement ideas. Early arrangement ideas are frequently discovered to be short of
what attractive, as issue investigation proceeds. Beginner designers (and some of the time
more experienced ones) can be disinclined to toss the idea and come back to a quest for a
superior option. Rather, they attempt difficultly to plan out the defects in the idea, delivering
slight enhancements until something workable yet maybe a long way from perfect is achieved.
Sometimes it can be a great deal more beneficial to begin anew with another outline idea (Cross
2008).
An alternate contrast in the middle of learners and masters is that amateurs will frequently
seek after a profundity first approach to an issue: consecutively distinguishing and investigating
sub-arrangements inside and out, and hoarding various fractional sub-arrangements that then
some way or another must be amalgamated and accommodated, in a base up methodology.
5

Specialists generally seek after transcendently broadness first and top-down systems (Cross
2008).
Experienced designers, in the same way as any gifted experts, can make outlining appear
to be simple and instinctive. Since talented plan in practice accordingly regularly seems to
move ahead in a somewhat specially appointed and unsystematic way, some individuals assert
that taking in a precise procedure does not really help understudy fashioners. In any case, a
study by Radclie and Lee (1989) did demonstrate that an efficient methodology can be useful
to understudies. They found that the utilization of more productive outline methodologies
(emulating closer to a perfect grouping) related decidedly with both the amount and the nature
of the understudies configuration results. Dierent studies have had a tendency to affirm this
(Cross 2008).
To improve my design ability and produce better quality solutions, i plan to:
1. demystified requisites, by asking sets of cognate questions which fixate on the quandary
structure
2. eectively hunt down data, and discriminatingly check given necessities
3. condense data on the issue detailing into necessities and incompletely prioritized them
4. not smother first arrangement thoughts but rather clutched them, however came back
to illuminating the issue instead of seeking after introductory arrangement ideas top to
bottom
5. disengage myself amid reasonable outline stages from obsession with ahead of schedule
arrangement ideas
6. deliver variations yet restrict the generation and keet a diagram by occasionally evaluating
and assessing with a specific end goal to lessen the quantity of conceivable variations.
The key to prosperous design therefore seems to be the efficacious management of the dual
exploration of both the quandary space and the solution space. (Cross 2008).
Designing is a form of adroit comportment. Learning any adeptness customarily relies on
controlled practice and the development of techniques. The performance of an adroit practitioner appears to flow seamlessly, acclimating the performance to the circumstances without
faltering. However, learning is not identically tantamount to performing, and underneath adroit
performance lies mastery of technique and procedure. (Cross 2008).
The ready to run model solar powered boat from group eleven was a modular immersed
planning hull compared to our catamaran hull design. The major thing i observed about their
boat was that it was slow compared to other groups. This is primarily as a result of them
not tailoring the solar panel output to the motor requirement. Im not sure about the exact
specifications but nevertheless, the motor was not running fast. This can be confirmed by
6

the boats first race performance in relatively low sunlight conditions on the day of the test.
Furthermore, when having a friendly race on a subsequent bright competition day, our boat was
still able to reach the finish line despite giving them a substantial head start. The group should
configure the solar panels to two solar panels in series and three in parallel as we have done to
produce a voltage of approximately 6.23 volts on a bright sunny day. The motor has a power
specification of 6.6 watts at maximum efficiency. Fundamentally, the motor have a reliability
of one on a bright sunny day and less than one on a not so sunny day. Going above the motor
specifications is an unnecessary risk to which there is a tendency to burn the motor depending
on the weather conditions. Furthermore, they did not use any capacitors in their circuit as our
group did. When you add a capacitor(s) to the circuit, it is continuously filled up with much
more power than the panels hold. In essence, the capacitor(s) is acting a bit like a battery
and the motor would run faster because of this extra power (wikihow 2014). It is essential
for the hull to have the slightest drag at low speeds. Furthermore, their boat generates too
much drag in water and air. The larger the surface area of the hull, the more the skin friction
drag which is essentially a power loss. Furthermore, as the boat has a tower like design, it
is expected to run slower when head or side winds are taken into consideration. They should
change their hull design to a catamaran design which is our boat hull design and is probably
the best (Eslbee 2014). An observation of their driveline transmission revealed that it was too
long and angled in such away that considerably increases non drive thrust with respect to the
resultant propeller thrust. I presume the reason for the long driveline transmission would be
to allow the propeller to be immersed in the water fully. In contrast, It is extremely desirable
to have a short drive shaft that connects the motor shaft to the propeller shaft and propeller
as we have done. This short shaft allows for a much greater amount of motor misalignment
that would result in additional frictional losses (Veale 2007). In addition to that, the rubber
coupling should be as short as possible also and hot glued onto both shafts. In addition, the
group made an inappropriate propeller selection by choosing the 2 blade propeller. Its by and
large acknowledged that two blade propellers are superior to three. And one blade is better
than two. This is because the blades dislike going in the wake of the past blade (rcgroups 2014).
I understand that to have the level of achievement that i need to have, it is hard to do
dierent things. It takes such an edgy fanatical centre and in contending, it is ideal to strive
to addition or win something by overcoming or making prevalence over other people who are
attempting over do likewise (dictionaries 2014).

References
ABET (2014). ABET Definition of Design. url: http://www.tulane.edu/~rice/tdp/ABET_
def.txt (visited on 12/01/2014).
Avery, C.M., M.A. Walker, and E.O.T. Murphy (2001). Teamwork is an Individual Skill: Getting Your Work Done when Sharing Responsibility. Berrett-koehler Series. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers. isbn: 9781576751558. url: http : / / books . google . com . my / books ? id =
Cwb3h8pzbAkC.
Cross, N. (2008). Engineering Design Methods: Strategies for Product Design. Wiley. isbn:
9780470519264. url: http://books.google.com.my/books?id=oilCPgAACAAJ.
dictionaries, oxford (2014). Top 1000 frequently used words. url: http://www.oxforddictionaries.
com/definition/english/competition (visited on 12/07/2014).
Eslbee (2014). Writing Comparison or Contrast Essays. url: http://eslbee.com/writing_
comparison_contrast_essays.htm (visited on 12/07/2014).
Flamholtz, E. (1996). Eective Management Control: Theory and Practice. Springer. isbn:
9780792396994. url: http://books.google.com.my/books?id=nRYuk6VmG5MC.
Hales, C. and S. Gooch (2004). Managing Engineering Design. Springer London. isbn: 9781852338039.
url: http://books.google.com.my/books?id=qpHu0qy609AC.
kridnix (2014a). Managing an Engineering Design Project- part I. url: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=bPB67mwYezM (visited on 12/01/2014).
(2014b). Managing an Engineering Design Project- part II. url: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=Ko3p3VQiiV0 (visited on 12/01/2014).
rcgroups (2014). 2 vs 3 blade props. url: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.
php?t=189013 (visited on 12/07/2014).
Robbins, S.P., R. Stuart-Kotze, and M. Coulter (2003). Management. Pearson Education Canada.
isbn: 9780130430793. url: http://books.google.com.my/books?id=mSWRje6j5V4C.
Veale, Geo (2007). Propulsion Systems. url: http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~gveale/
solar/propulsion.htm (visited on 12/07/2014).
Weimer, Maryellen (2014). 10 Recommendations for Improving Group Work. url: http://www.
facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/10-recommendationsimproving-group-work/ (visited on 12/07/2014).
wikihow (2014). How to Make a Simple Solar Engine. url: http://www.wikihow.com/Makea-Simple-Solar-Engine (visited on 12/07/2014).