PD 21 Unit 06 Transcript

To Start Us Off (Video)

[Kathy Acheson = KA; Matthew Gingerich = MG; Emily Kirke = EK; Ben Best = BB] KA: So tell us a little bit about your project and how you generate solutions for that project. MG: All right, so Im a member of the IGEM team, and IGEM is an acronym for the International Genetically Engineered Machines competition. So what we do is we, uh, genetically engineer machines, um, which is to say that we try and apply engineering principles to biological design. So the analogy is always to electrical engineering, so were trying to design bacteria in the way that people have traditionally engineered circuits, which is in modular ways. So we put together, um, parts made out of DNA in a way that they can be reused, and then because theyre reusable, and, uh, hopefully better understood than a completely novel part, uh, it allows designs to be made in advance and made more complex because of that. So when were trying to design the software that, uh, will teach people how to use synthetic biology tools, um, one area that were, we can draw on for inspiration is existing software projects that do similar things. Uh, for instance, um, there, there are a lot of computer-aided design tools that currently apply to mechanical engineering and, um, even artistic tools like Photoshop and, uh, open-source variations on that, they all have interfaces that people are familiar with that can be, uh, exploited in that sense in our own projects. So we look a lot at, um, existing resources to see where those, um, solutions can be applied to our own problems, and then when it comes to making our own, uh, solution, we both recombine existing solutions in new ways as well as just kind of throwing out ideas, um, as fast as you can, just coming up with wild and crazy things, and then cutting that down at a later stage. EK: Well we started out by, uh, brainstorming a variety of different scenarios, and the first one that we looked at was just kind of a base case, so it was the simplest, uh, model that we could think of. And, uh, we kind of outlined the steps that, uh, we would have to follow to, uh, take that from start to finish. And in addition to that, we also looked at some more complex scenarios, um, and those involved, uh, kind of tweaking certain aspects of, uh, of the inputs to the model, and, um, we decided in the end to go with the, the base case scenario, um, which was the simplest. And, uh, we did that because of, uh, of time constraints really, uh, but we did set up our model so that, uh, wed be able to, uh, run the other, more complex scenarios that, uh, we didnt have time for. BB: I want to talk a little bit about brainstorming. Um, so one of the ways that we use brainstorming quite a bit within Engineers Without Borders is, once we have an impact model and have started testing our assumptions, if any of those assumptions turn out to be wrong, its really important for us to be able to brainstorm new ways of solving that problem. So Ive talked a little bit about technology adoption, uh, and I gave an example last time about using pictures and videos to, uh, promote technology adoption in, in farmers. So, assuming that we try that out and it doesnt work in farmers, its really important for, with farmers, its really important for us to be able to brainstorm a new way of, of driving technology adoption or potentially modifying what were doing. So thats one way that we, that we brainstorm, is if we find an element of our model that is not actually true, that weve assumed is true, we brainstorm a new way of getting around that problem. Uh, as in another example of, of brainstorming, we often also brainstorm ways of changing our model slightly to get some different value of it. Um, so for example, for the last three years, weve been working quite a bit on a program to help build business skills in smallholder farmers so that they can move from subsistence farming more towards business-minded farming, and part of that is developing strong farmer-based organizations, and, and develop in their capacity. Uh, now, weve been doing that work with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, but theres also actually a lot of applications for the way that we evaluate the effectiveness and capacity of a farmer-based organization to apply to other projects. So some of the things that we were brainstorming was biggest around, um, having that value or having that, uh, skill and intellectual property around effectively evaluating farmer-based organizations, how can we transfer that and provide value to other groups such as other development projects that are working with farmer groups, um, or other projects within the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to make them more effective. So beyond brainstorming specific problems within our models to get over hurdles that we see, we also brainstorm outside of the box and say, how do we take what we already have and apply it in other areas to also gain more value from the investments that weve already made. So thats a couple of quick examples about how we use brainstorming in a, it impacts a lot of what we do and shows up in a lot of places, but basically it allows you to, it allows us to solve problems and also multiply the value of the investments weve already made. [End Video Transcript]

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PD 21 Unit 06 Transcript

CEAB Graduate Attributes

The ability to analyze and solve complex engineering problems is one of the requirements of CEAB accreditation. Read the CEAB Graduate Attributes for this unit before proceeding to the lesson.

Lesson 6 - CEAB Graduate Attributes (3.1.2) Problem Analysis

Wayne Miranda works with Engineers Without Borders in Ghana. At first glance my job these days doesnt look very much like engineering, he says, But it is my 4 years at the University of Waterloo studying the ins and outs of problem solving and design that have allowed me to succeed. (From Translating an Approach Across Continents, Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, http://www.ewb.ca/en/whatsnew/story/78/translating-an-approachacross-continents.html). (December 2010) Problem analysis, which the CEAB defines as an ability to use appropriate knowledge and skills to identity, formulate, analyze, and solve complex engineering problems in order to reach substantiated conclusions (CEAB 3.1.2), is key to engineering practice and the overall topic of this course. Waynes work with EWB was on the same problem that Ben Best, featured in videos in Units X, Y, and Z, is working on: how to move small-scale farmers in Ghana from subsistence to sustainability. As Wayne describes it, We discovered that the problem we were facing was twofold. First, in order for Ghanas farmers to grow their farms and increase their income, a shift from farming for survival to farming as a business was needed. Second, MoFAs [the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghanas] extension staff would need the appropriate tools to effectively help farmers make this transition. This may not seem like a complex engineering problem to you, but it is: it involves many different parts, it is hard to solve, and it affects innumerable people. The EWB team designed a curriculum to introduce basic business concepts (planning, record-keeping, periodic assessments, and so on) to farmers, to be delivered through the MoFA fieldworkers. The program is called Agriculture as a Business (AAB). This approach has had some success, but in some ways it has fallen short of its goals. In a blog post from April 8, 2011, Ben addresses the problems that he thinks are limiting the success of the program. The EWB team had focused on the farmers needs when developing the AAB program, but Ben thinks that the model needs to be rethought: As engineers it is especially easy to get caught up in the product development side, which is usually more fun than navigating politics and power structures, he writes. In EWB were (mostly) engineers, and we like to build things that work! Thats what weve spent a long time doing with AAB. At the end of the day, we certainly need to have a good product that ultimately provides value to smallholder farmers, but on a day-to-day basis, our focus needs to be on providing value to MoFA so our program will be sustainable at scale in the long term. (http://theborrowedbicycle.ca/) As a result of the substantiated conclusions of his analysis of the problem AAB faces, Ben has shifted the identity of the client from the farmer to the agency that serves the farmers. On-going assessment and improvement is one of the keys to solving complex problems using the wide range of skills and experiences that you, as an engineer, will have. [End CEAB Attributes Transcript]

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PD 21 Unit 06 Transcript
Lesson 6 - Generating Solution Concepts
If I were to ask are you a creative person how would you answer? You might answer no based on the fact that you dont write poetry, paint landscapes, or compose music. And while these are good examples of creativity, they are not the only ones. As engineers, our creativity can also be expressed in the ways we solve the problems that we encounter in the world around us. Just like Archimedes who shouted Eureka to herald his discovery of the principle of volume displacement, we can achieve the same feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when our creativity leads to the solution of a problem we have been struggling with. The initial steps of developing effective plans, forming a problem statement and a list of objectives, determining functions and requirements, and performing research, have provided a detailed view of the device we are seeking. We know what we want the device to be like (objectives), what we want it to do (functions) and even what others think about it (research). We might feel like we know everything about the device, until someone starts asking us questions such as how does it work? how is it built? or how does the user control it?. Like the picture on front of a jigsaw puzzle box, the objectives and functions tell us what the final solution looks like, but its up to us to put the pieces together.

Sidebar Content Unit 6: Lost in Translation

Your profession and your University attract people from all over the world. They speak many different languages. In all of your workplace and educational settings, it is likely that people speak English, but they may do so with varying degrees of competence. This can cause problems in comprehension and teamwork. Heres an example of what can happen in multiple translations. Using Google Translate, I started with the sentence from Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities which closes the novel: It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. Translated by the program into Swahili, the sentence reads: Ni mbali, mbali zaidi kitu mimi, kuliko niliyofanya, ni mbali, mbali zaidi wengine kwamba mimi kwenda kuliko mimi milele kujulikana. Translated back into English, the sentence now reads: It is far, far more than anything to me, than I did, is far, far more than the rest that I go to than I have ever known. Heres a simpler example. I start with the English sentence, When do you expect the volcano to erupt again? Icelandic: Hvenr von eldfjall a gjsa aftur? Hungarian: Mikor vrhat a vulkn kitr jra? Indonesian: Diharapkan ketika gunung berapi meletus lagi? Back to English: It is expected that when the volcano erupted again?" In the first example, the translation has messed with both the sense and the poetry of the original. In the second example, the result is grammatically and syntactically nonsensical, although a listener might figure it out.

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The point here is that the richness of all speech and writing is local to the language in which it originates. Be considerate with people with whom you do not share a first language. Speak clearly, be self-conscious about using idiomatic vocabulary or grammatical forms, and be alert to responses. And hope for the same from your listeners, as what you have to say is important. [End Sidebar Content Transcript]

[Continuation of Lesson Transcript] Solution concepts are generated by answering how? or what? questions for the functions and attributes we developed previously. For example, if the function of a coffee maker is to make coffee, answers to questions such as how does it work?, what material is it made from? and what is its energy source? provide specific suggestions that may be considered when the final design is selected. These answers are means, defined in Unit 3 as possible ways to achieve the functions of the design, and although they shouldnt be included in a list of objectives, they are essential for generating solution concepts. Depending on the complexity of the problem and the number of functions and attributes we have defined, the options for the solution may be limited or quite extensive. To better understand the scope of the problem, it is helpful to consider the design space, an imaginary region that contains all possible solutions to the problem we have posed. The design space can either be small, with a narrow focus, few options, and not many places to seek a solution or large, with a wide focus, many options and no limits when it comes to looking for solutions. Each of these situations has its challenges. If the design space is too small, we could miss a potentially valid solution that falls outside our scope. If the design space is too large, it becomes difficult to formulate valid options and pick the best one. In this lesson we will examine two methods for changing the design space size; brainstorming to increase the size of small design spaces, and morphological charting to organize and limit the size of large design spaces. Brainstorming is a creative, team-based exercise for generating design ideas. The methods and rules for brainstorming were first published by Alex Faickney Osborn, an advertising agency business manager and parttime author, in his 1953 book Applied Imagination. He established four basic rules for brainstorming sessions, intended to help increase the overall creativity of the group. 1. Focus on quantitythe more ideas generated, the greater the chances of finding the right solution 2. Withhold criticismnothing kills creativity faster than criticism; if its eliminated, ideas will be shared freely, especially the unusual and unique ones. 3. Welcome unusual ideasdont be tied to conventional thinking and traditional methods; looking at the problem in a different way may provide a better solution. 4. Combine and improve ideasgreat ideas usually start off as a series of good ideas that are combined and refined. (Osborn 1953) These rules suggest that brainstorming effectively requires a balance between two types of thinking: divergent thinking and convergent thinking. In the initial phases of a brainstorming session, divergent thinking removes preconceived barriers and limitation, increasing the number of design possibilities and the size of the design space. Thinking outside of the box is a popular expression that describes divergent thinking. As the brainstorming session continues, convergent thinking will begin to emerge as a few potential solutions are identified and refined. Zeroing in on a solution is an expression often applied to convergent thinking. This video features Jim Baleshta, an Instructor in the Mechanical and Mechatronics Department and a professional designer, talking about the brainstorming process. As you watch the video, listen for methods or behaviours during a brainstorming session that represent either divergent or convergent thinking.

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PD 21 Unit 06 Transcript

Baleshta on Brainstorming (Video)

[Peter Teertstra = PT; Jim Baleshta = JB] PT: Today were sitting here talking to a professional designer, someone who designs for a living. Uh, this is Jim Baleshta, and he is a design engineer who works for the Mechanical and Mechatronics Program at the University of Waterloo, but also he has done a lot of design work for companies such as Frito-Lay, Procter and Gamble, and, hes even, um, started his own design company, Nordac, um, that has a lot of different products in the market. So, uh, and today Jim is gonna be talking to us about brainstorming. JB: Thanks Pete. PT: When is brainstorming used in industry? JB: All the time, whether its called brainstorming or not, any time theres a problem that has multiple possible answers, or there isnt an obvious solution to it, then brainstorming is done. PT: Where does brainstorming usually take place? JB: Brainstorming you would think would take place in a boardroom or in a design office, but it can take place in a car, standing up for coffee, at a restaurant, uh, on the golf course, and then ideas can be scratched out on a whiteboard, a blackboard, even scratched in the sand, but, it, so it happens everywhere. PT: What are some of the things that need to be put in place, um, before a brainstorming session can really get started? JB: Um, a few things. One, I think that you should really make sure that you have somewhere where you can record your ideas graphically, that could be, um, I get a whiteboard, a chalkboard. Uh, I like personally the newsprint, uh, posterboard where you can get up with a marker and do things out. So one little point is that people start waving their hands in the air, or if its yourself, youre waving your hands, youre trying to describe something, well thats a sure clue you got to pick up a pencil, uh, a pen, a marker, and get up and start putting things down on whatever medium you have to put that down on. Once you do that, I think youll find that, uh, the whole meeting goes much better because everyone can really understand what your ideas are. So thats one thing, uh, the other thing, uh, for larger groups, I think its, uh, a good idea to have a moderator and someone to record, uh, notes, a minute taker. Theres an expression, which is so true, that the weakest ink is better than the best memory, and that, that really holds true, so I recommend that. One little thing, humorous thing I do at the start of a brainstorming session, is I say, idea number seventeen is the one that you often run with, and people laugh, but after a while, youd be surprised how close you get to idea number seventeen. One idea launches another and you go down this path, so it, it, its, its quite a procedure. PT: Are there any ground rules that should be put in place before a brainstorming session starts? JB: I think, uh, that there are a few. Uh, one of the things is that theres no bad ideas during a brainstorming session. Someone could come up with something thats a little bit wacky, and itll lead to something thats a great idea that will really work. So no bad ideas, everything should be encouraged. The moderator, uh, should try to make sure that, uh, everyones ideas get heard, and, uh, it isnt just the alpha dog of the group, and therell be one in every group, that kind of takes over. So the moderator should make sure that everyones ideas are encouraged. Uh, nobody should be rolling their eyes or snickering if someone makes an idea; that is the antithesis of brainstorming. The last thing with the meeting, a brainstorm meeting or any meeting, which I think is really important, is uh, the moderator at the start should say, no sidebar conversations. If people are having a

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whole bunch of sidebar conversations, the whole meeting will descend on a slippery slope downwards, so those should be avoided and mentioned right at the start of the meeting. PT: Do you have any advice for people who want to start up a brainstorming session? JB: Yes, theres a few things I can mention. The first thing is that, um, it should be a fun and creative process. Even though what youre working on can be quite serious, the whole session itself should be kept with that atmosphere. Uh, the second thing, youre gonna be looking for solutions to problems. There might be some that you kind of know already, but I really suggest that you step back and really try to see the forest for the trees, and come up with something really innovative, really out there, really unorthodox. If you put these things forward and you realize theyre not practical, and you go back to the more conventional solution, thats fine, you can console yourself afterwards with the fact that you really tried to do everything you could that way. Uh, the next thing I would advise is that, try to list everything about the problem that you know, everything that you can say, okay, heres what we know about it, this, this, this, this. Thats a good thing to get down on your posterboard or whatever youre writing on, and then it makes the rest of the, the problem that much easier to get your head around. Uh, I like to reduce the amount of gray in trying to find, um, and, and gray being uncertainty to a problem, as you go, work towards its solution. And, uh, I think there comes a point if all goes well, we say, oh, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this solution. This is what I call the warm fuzzy solution, that, okay, I can really see now that this ones gonna work. And sometimes its pretty close to idea number seventeen. Uh, the last thing, uh, I want, want to say is that, be careful, one pitfall where people fall into a trap where they start debating or talking and, and discussing the answer to something that somebody can go away, and within a half hour, find the answer to this problem definitively after the meeting. So just leave that, push that aside, work on the things where you dont know the solution to. PT: Does the brainstorming session end, uh, once the meeting is adjourned? JB: In some respects, it just gets started. Its amazing that youll go to a brainstorming session and theyll bring up the problem, and then youll be walking in society now with this problem in the back of your head, and its really incredible what filters out from that, and what can come up, and it seems incredibly coincidental. Uh, one example I can give you is, say, okay, how many white Ford Mustangs did you see today? And you probably cant remember, right, now that I plant that in your head, you will be driving or walking, youll see a whole bunch of them. Same with brainstorming: as soon as that idea is planted, its really interesting how then it will come back into your head, youll see solutions to the problem, uh, and so this is a good idea to then go and have a second session for people to be out there a little bit, come back in, and bring their ideas in for a second time. PT: So how would you respond to, to someone who said to you, I cant participate in brainstorming because Im not a creative person. JB: Everybody is creative, and I really believe that a lot more than they give themselves credit for. And sometimes, under stress, people are very creative. Uh, so, what I think is that they need a push to be creative, they need someone to prod them or they need to prod themselves. In general, its easier not to be creative, and so thats why some people go through life that way. PT: And do you have any final thoughts? JB: Uh, yes, final thought would be that, uh, it would seem logical and prudent that if you look at a problem and you find previous solutions to that problem and what was done. I think that, yes, you can do that, but when I have done that with students before, heres a problem we, well work on, heres a, a past solution, then their thinking kind of converges on that, and its not very wide. We really need innovative, creative thinking in Canada as we move forward, and I think that if you see the solution to the problem, the problems this big, your solution should be this big, we want solutions out here, we want a whole wider circle. So sometimes its good to take a crack at solving the problem, uh, before you see existing solutions which will then constrain your thoughts. Example to support that: in ME 100 we get the students to design a coffee cup. Seems really simple thing to do, but if you look at different functions, we want it to stand on a table, which that should be wide, go in a car, should be narrow, the lid has to clip on, it has to be hygienic design, uh, theres all sorts of tolerances between the fit, what materials, what functions its gonna have. And when I showed the class a previous solution, all the solutions that

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PD 21 Unit 06 Transcript
came in were very very similar to that one, more so than other years than when we didnt show them the solution, we got all sorts of neat and interesting ideas. So thats one, and that taught me, then, uh, not to show them a solution to the problem, uh, let them work on, on their own, and then the end result will be, uh, much more innovative. [End Video Transcript]

[Continuation of Lesson Transcript] The video presented a number of methods for improving your brainstorming sessions and increasing the likelihood of finding ideas that may be part of the final design. However, it is really important to remember that generating design ideas, either as a group or working on your own is a time-consuming and challenging process. It often requires numerous (up to 17 or more) iterations until we begin to see some good ideas emerge. So dont be discouraged if you dont find the solution right awayjust keep looking. Another technique that can help with thinking outside the box is to look for analogies to the problem. Identifying applications or behaviours that are analogous, either in man-made or natural systems can provide a unique solution that we might not have otherwise considered. Here are a few examples. The plant burrs that clung to his clothing after he went for a walk were the inspiration for Georges de Mestrals design of Velcro in 1948. An engineer who was working on the design of a new lawnmower came up with the concept of cutting grass with string after he watched his son spinning a yo-yo over his head and the Weed Eater was invented. The engineers who designed the re-entry system for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space craft modelled their ablative heat shield after meteors; the surface of the heat shield material becomes molten and vaporizes, absorbing and dissipating the heat generated by friction with the atmosphere.

Sidebar Content Design by Accident

Sometimes solutions to problems seem to come about almost by accident. Here are three examples of outside the box thinkers whose novel ideas to solve simple problems ended up changing the world.

Earmuffs Chester Greenwood 1873

One day in the winter of 1873, 15 year old Chester Greenwood wanted to walk to Abbot Pond to try out a pair of new skates. Since Chesters ears itched fiercely at the touch of wool, the normal scarves that kids wrapped about their heads wouldnt work for him. He found his grandmother in her farmhouse kitchen and asked her to help him fashion something to shield his ears from the cold winter wind. The Greenwood Champion Ear Protector used a combination of beaver fur on the outside, black velvet on the inside and flat spring steel for the band. On March 13, 1877 Greenwood patented his idea and soon after he established a factory in a brick building in West Farmington. By 1883 his factory was producing 30,000 ear muffs a year. By 1936 the annual output had risen to 400,000. When he died in 1937 Greenwood had more than 130 patents for such diverse products as spark plugs, mouse traps, shock absorbers, a rubber-less rubber band, and garden rakes.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Greenwood

Post-it Notes Spencer Silver / Arthur Fry 1970

Post-it notes, the little self-stick notepapers, is a great example of a product that happened by accident. Spencer Silver, a chemist working for 3M in 1970, was developing new, high-strength adhesives. One of his new adhesives turned out to be even weaker than what 3M was already manufacturing. It stuck to objects but was easily removed, and although he didnt have a use for the adhesive, Spencer decided to save it just in case. Fast forward four years to another 3M scientist named Arthur Fry, who was a member of his churchs choir. Arthur often used small pieces of paper to mark his place in his hymn book, but they kept falling out. Arthur remembered Spencers adhesive and used it on some of his paper markers. The markers stayed in place, yet the weak adhesive didnt damage the pages when removed. Post-it Notes were distributed nationwide in 1980, a full ten years after Spencer Silvers mistake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_It_Notes

Liquid Paper Bette Nesmith Graham 1951

Liquid Paper, or Mistake Out as it was originally called, was the invention of Bette Nesmith Graham. Bette went to work as a typist in 1951 to support herself and her son after her divorce. Since she wasn't very good at typing, she developed a white tempura paint to hide her many mistakes. Soon Bette was making her Mistake Out product in her kitchen and garage and selling it to other secretaries and office workers. When she was satisfied that her product was worthwhile she approached IBM with the idea but they turned her down. Undaunted, Bette changed the name to Liquid Paper and kept selling it from her home for the next 17 years. Gillette Corporation bought Liquid Paper from Bette for $47.5 million in 1979. Bette also found fame as the mother of Michael Nesmith, a member of The Monkees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Paper [End Sidebar Content Transcript]

[Continuation of Lesson Transcript] If the brainstorming session and subsequent creative design work were successful, the result will be a large, wellpopulated design space that should (hopefully) contain the final solution we are looking for. The next step in the process is to form a morphological chart, which is used to organize and visualize the design space and identify potentially viable solution concepts. The left-hand column of the morphological chart, or morph chart, contains a list of the significant functions and features of the device or solution. Functions were defined in Unit #4 as the answers to the question what does it do? Features are aspects or characteristics of the final design that can be achieved in different ways and that directly affect either the objectives or the functionality of the device. An example of a feature is the material used to construct a critical system component, which impacts on the performance, ruggedness, cost and safety, all objectives of the design. Manufacturing method is another example of a feature that might be included in morph chart. Each row of the morph chart contains the means, different ways that each function or feature can be implemented. Many of the means that are included in the chart are the result of ideas generated during the brainstorming session. In this example a morphological chart is developed for a children's single serving drink container.

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Morphological Chart (Video)
In this example, we consider the design of a single-serving juice container for a childrens drink manufacturer. The client has listed the objectives and functions that the design should achieve, and has identified the four most important ones as follows: contain juice, a function; material, a feature; provide access to juice, a function; display product information, a function. Each row of the morph chart contains means, or ways that the function or feature can be achieved in the final design. Dont worry if the numbers of items in each row dont match; at this point, you want to include as many options as possible. For the first row, the different methods for containing the juice are listed: a can, a bottle, a bag, and a box. In the second row, the possible materials that could be used for the container are listed: aluminum, plastic, glass, wax paper, and Mylar film. The different ways that the juice can be accessed are listed on the third row: using a pull tab, inserting a straw, removing a twist cap, tearing a corner, unfolding the container, and a zipper. Finally, the means that could be used to display the product information are displayed on the last row of the morphological chart: the shape of the container, the colour of the material, and the label. Once all the means have been identified and entered into the chart, potential solution concepts can be generated by picking various combinations from each of the rows. For example, a juice container could be a bag constructed with Mylar film that uses a straw inserted through a small opening to access the juice, and a label to display the product information. This combination of means is a feasible solution, one that satisfies physical laws and principles, meets our constraints, and makes practical sense to us. There are many different feasible solutions that can be formed based on the morph chart, each of which satisfies these requirements. However, there are also many combinations of means that lead to infeasible solutions. Lets look at an example. The container could be a box constructed with glass that uses a zipper to access the juice, and the colour of the material to display the product information. Its obvious that this combination of means cannot produce a viable product. Although it might be possible to make a box out of glass, a zipper requires the material used for the container to be flexible. This is one of many incompatible design solutions that are eliminated through the use of the morphological chart. [End Video Transcript]

[Continuation of Lesson Transcript] One of the challenges of developing a morph chart is choosing which functions and features to include. We want to capture all of the objectives and functions that are important to the client but at the same time we need to keep the chart at a reasonable size, typically 58 rows. Chart entries should also all be at the same level; that is, means that represent small design details shouldnt appear on the same chart as overall solution characteristics. The toaster described in the black box analysis example in Unit 4 provides a good illustration for this process. The basic and secondary functions identified through the black box analysis were:

Accept slice of bread Present toast to operator Allow operator to select well doneness Allow operator to turn on Shutdown at correct well doneness

Alert operator at shutdown Consume energy Produce heat Hot surfaces injure operator Accumulates crumbs

The entries for the morphological chart are found by recognizing that many of these functions are closely related to each other. For example, the functions Consume energy and Produce heat can be combined into the chart entry Heat source. Then the possible methods that can be used to perform these functions can be listed; a nichrome wire coil, nichrome ribbon wrapped around a mica plate, a quartz tube element, a metal

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PD 21 Unit 06 Transcript
chromel element, and an external heat source. The functions Accept slice of bread, Allow operator to turn on and Present toast to operator are all associated with the Loading mechanism of the toaster. The functions Allow user to select well doneness and Shutdown at correct well doneness are combined to describe the Control mechanism of the toaster. The Hot surfaces injure operator function is related to the feature Material for outer surface of the toaster. The morphological chart is completed with means derived from a brainstorming session for each of the significant functions and features. Heat source Loading mechanism Control mechanism Material for outer surface Nichrome wire coil Top slot, manual load Timer Plastic Nichrome ribbon Top slot, automatic load Temperature sensor Aluminum Quartz tube element Opening sides, manual load Toast colour sensor Stainless steel Metal chromel element Horizontal slot, automatic load Weight sensor External heat source Open, manual load

Once complete, the morph chart is used to identify from all of the feasible combinations a few of the most promising options, or design alternatives. In addition to the constraints and physical laws that were used to eliminate non-feasible combinations, common sense and a good understanding of the priorities of the client and the customer are essential for this process. Objectives such as minimizing cost, minimizing energy usage and maximizing flexibility will help us select combinations that have the potential of forming the final design. This exercise will give you a chance to fill in a morphological chart and practice your brainstorming skills. In Unit 4 Alan and Nadia prepared to analyze the functions of an IV clip that their company was developing. The basic function of the clip is to secure IV tubing to an IV stand, like the one shown here, and prevent the tube from falling to the floor where it could tangle the wheels or trip someone. The objectives are that the clip should be easy to clean, easy to use and cost as little as possible. The constraints are that the clip must be reusable, must be made from recyclable materials and must not interfere with the drip. Rememberthe goal of brainstorming and the morphological chart is not to pick the final design solution; its to identify a number of viable solution concepts that we can choose from. How do we choose the final design? That question will be answered in the next unit.

Verbal Description (Morphological Chart Exercise)

There is no spoken narration for this exercise. The following is a short list of the contents. Title slide Slide describing the task of the exercise: to complete a morphological chart Morphological chart with some given means and some means that must be filled in Complete morphological chart with all means filled in

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PD 21 Unit 06 Transcript
Two slides showing solutions constructed from feasible combinations of means from the complete morphological chart Closing slide

[End Exercise Transcript] [End Lesson Transcript]

Unit 06 Lesson Summary

The objectives for this Unit are to better enable successful students to: Understand the concept of a design space and how to assess its size Develop strategies for group brainstorming sessions Apply morphological charts to generate solution concepts

Words added to the glossary from Unit 6: Brainstorming: a creative, team-based exercise for generating design ideas. Brainstorming is used to enlarge the design space to encourage development of possible solutions. Design space: an imaginary region that contains all possible solutions to the problem we have posed. Morphological chart: a tool to organize and visualize the design space and identify potentially viable solution concepts. Morphological charts relate attributes with means, and are used to narrow the design space to encourage development of effective solutions. The Monkees: a pop rock group of the 1960s featured in an eponymous television show watched after school in reruns by the authors of this course. Most famous (to the authors) for the title song of the television show, which began Hey hey were the Monkees,/People say we monkey around, the band is now best known for the fact that the mother of one of the members (Michael Nesmith) invented Liquid Paper. Solution concept: a promising design or feasible concept. [End Lesson Summary Transcript]

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