Syllabus

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Prerequisites: 2.670, 2.001
Spring, 2003
3-4-5

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Teaches the creative design process based on the scientific method with lectures and the creation, engineering, and manufacture of a remote controlled machine to compete in a major design contest at the end of the semester. Students learn to identify a problem (opportunity!) and create, develop, and select best strategies, and concepts using fundamental principles, appropriate analysis, and experimentation. Students then divide their best concept up into modules and after developing the most critical modules first in descending order of criticality, proceed to system integration, testing, and debugging. Project and risk management are introduced as tools to keep the development process under control in order to deliver a robust working machine on time and on budget. Fundamental principles are emphasized including Occam's Razor, Abbe Errors, Maxwell's Reciprocity, Saint-Venant's Principle, Sensitive Directions, Self-Help, Centers-of-Action, Structural Loops, and the Golden Rectangle. The physics and application of machine elements to enable students to create and engineer their machines are introduced by lecture and example. Throughout the course, engineers' professional responsibilities are stressed. Students are assumed to be competent at parametric solid modeling, spreadsheets or MatLab^®, and basic machine shop skills. Educational, reference, and design assistance materials are provided on-line to enable students to learn as much as the want/need whenever they want/need.

The objective of the course is to enable students through lecture and hands-on experience to:

1. Learn the process of design, based on the scientific method, to combine creative thinking with engineering principles (physics) to turn ideas into robust reality:
   • Identify a problem (opportunity!)
   • Use fundamental principles and appropriate analysis and experiments to select and develop ideas
   • Generate and create strategies for solving the problem
   • Generate and create concepts for implementing the selected "best" strategy
   • Break the concept into modules and develop the most critical module first
   • Complete the detailed design of the modules and manufacture, test, and debug them
   • Integrate modules and test, debug, and modify the system as needed
   • Document the results (closing the design loop)
     
     
2. Become familiar with fundamental design principles, machine elements, and manufacturing and assembly techniques
   
3. Learn how to assess risk, resort to countermeasures when risk becomes too great, and manage projects to be "on-time" and "on-budget"
   
4. Practice professionalism, be safety conscious, and maintain high ethical standards

Real designers in countless companies follow this systematic process. Good designers get raises and responsibility and reflect well on themselves and their profession. Bad designers are of no use to anybody. A bad designer:

• Has no respect for project management and thinks they can just cut-and-fit on the fly.
• Thinks they can see it all in their head and does not need to sketch, test, and plan.
• Works late hours the night before the contest and produces something.
• Gets at best a "D" in 2.007, regardless of how they do in the contest (history has shown they will do poorly).

2.007 is far more about learning the process of design, by engineering and building your machine, than just building a machine to compete in the contest. Without knowing the process of design, you will not be able to compete on real design projects in the real world. Lecture notes will be posted on the web, along with a LOT of other information that can help you design your machine. Students must look over the web site and find the goodies that are placed there! This is excellent training for the real world!

There is no textbook for the course, but we will hand out lecture notes and supplementary notes to go with them. You will, however, find your 2.001 text extremely useful! Reference books (e.g., Machinery's Handbook) are available in the Lab.

• Suggested readings for those who are interested in the process of design include:
  • Pahl, G., and W. Beitz. Engineering Design, A Systematic Approach. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988.
  • Suh, N. P. The Principles of Design. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
    
    
• Incredibly useful handbooks every practicing design engineer should own:
  • Roark, R. J., and W. C. Young. Formulas for Stress and Strain. McGraw-Hill Book Company.
    
    
• For students interested in hardware details:
  • Shigley, J. E., and L. D. Mitchell. Mechanical Engineering Design. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1983.
  • Slocum, A. H. Precision Machine Design. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1992.

Twice weekly for 1.5 hours. See the schedule for lecture topics. The course closely follows the schedule!

There is no formal recitation. 2.007 students are to arrange additional time with your lab instructors as needed.

2.007 students are assigned by the registrar to a lab section for 1-5 pm M, T, W, R, or F. The labs are only scheduled in the afternoons, and they are 4 hours exciting to give students more scheduled build time. Labs start the second week of class, BUT you must get your kit and locker assignment between 12:00 and 2:00 pm on the second day of the first week or you will be bumped from the class!

• There will be no weekend or evening hours for the shop!
• Lab opens at 07:30 (the Bridgeports can first be used at 08:30) and closes at 5:00 pm, so create a normal working person's schedule! Students may not skip 2.001, 2.002, 2.003, 2.004J, 2.005, 2.006, 2.010 or 2.671 in order to spend extra time in the lab. Do not skip these "Core" subjects to work on your machine. Use the early mornings when things are calm! Pace yourself! If you "wait until the last minute," you will fail (D and lower grades are indeed given to students who try and do everything at the last minute, even if their machines work well) not only in 2.007, but also in the real world!
• You are free to use your own shop if you have access to one.
• Most of Lab time should be for you to explore ideas by creating hands-on experiments. Instructors will spend little time "leading the group." Your instructor is your coach, advisor, and mentor.

It is nearly impossible to change lab sections. 2.007 labs have first priority because the lab becomes unsafe when overcrowded. Make sure you have first tried to resolve any conflicts by changing sections in other classes. On the fourth day of the first week, the course secretary will help students resolve conflicts with mechanical engineering subjects.

You MUST wear safety goggles or safety glasses (polycarbonate eyeglasses are fine) and closed-toed shoes at ALL times in the lab. Violators will be asked to leave immediately and not to return until outfitted appropriately. Tie your hair back and take off your jewelry before coming to class.

Contest kits and lockers will be given out between noon and 2 pm on the second day of the first week in the Pappalardo Lab by the course secretary. 2.007 students must individually design and build and operate their machines. Remember, the 2.007 contest is a giant celebration. How you place in the contest has NO impact on your grade. In order to pass the course, however, you MUST compete, even if you place a non-functioning machine on the table.

There are a lot of materials required for 2.007, and although many companies have made donations, we usually collect a lab fee. BUT this year, because of a grant from General Motors AND Ford Motor Company, there is no lab fee, AND you get to keep your machines at the end (including the motors used on your machine)! You must bring your 2.670 toolkit to lab, as you will need it. Your kit will be in your locker. Be careful with your kits. The laboratory is open to people not associated with 2.007. WRITE YOUR NAME ON YOUR STUFF! Keep critical components locked up.

Your first action with your kits is to write your name on the motors and critical items! IF you lose your motor, you need to go buy your own replacement! Use the permanent marker in your kit to put your name on your motors and critical items!

Because of the generosity of Ford and GM, students get to keep their machines in their entirety (motors, everything!). We only ask that students not be wasteful, and turn in the parts you do not use (including extra motors!).

Like any good engineering project, 2.007 runs on a schedule! What may have formally been known as "problem sets" were actually "milestone reports." We recommend each student have a project website as a good place to post milestone reports as well as the details of your machine development. Having an up-to-date website will also help your instructor. At the end of the class, the website will become your first portfolio entry. Having a quality portfolio is great asset for job interviews!

The Milestone reports will be reviewed during each week's lab section by you and your instructor, so you will receive real-time feedback. Each section instructor is free to modify Milestone report submission as they see fit.

Normally, a designer keeps a detailed bound notebook for invention date establishment. You can do this for 2.007, and then photocopy sketches, calculations, etc. you may want to use for your milestone reports. However, we recognize that this can be difficult in a course, so loose-leaf paper in a 3 ring binder will be acceptable. You should have a 3-ring binder for handouts, notes, and returned milestone reports. If you have a Tablet PC, you could keep your entire notebook in digital form!

This is very much an interactive course, and you have a very low chance of passing if you do not attend lectures and labs, which closely follow the milestone reports; AND your grade is very dependent on the milestone reports, so you will receive a piece of your grade each week, and your total grade is the sum of your weekly milestone grades. Each milestone report focuses on helping you create your 2.007 machine. There are no busy-work assignments. Everything is focused on the contest machine from Day 1. There are no formal quizzes. Grades are based on how well you complete each weeks' milestones:

WEEK # GRADING ITEM (DUE AT END OF LAB THAT WEEK) POINTS FINAL GRADE 1 - 13 Milepebbles: Lab notebook checkoff (0, ½, or 1 point) 7 90%-100% = A 3 Milestone 1: Strategy 10 80%-90% = B 5 Milestone 2: Concept 10 70%-80% = C 7 Milestone 3: Most Critical Module 10 60%-70% = D 10 Milestone 4: Detail Modules and Components 10 Ouch 12 Milestone 5: Demonstrate Working Machine 10 14 Milesto ne 6 : Final Celebration Contest 43 Total 100

Students will be responsible for using the Peer Review Evaluation Process (PREP) for providing feedback on each other's lab notebooks (Milepebbles) and Milestone reports. You will be part of a 3 person Peer Review Evaluation Team that you are responsible for forming in your section! Your section instructor will review the teams' comments and will give feedback to the team on how effective they are at providing constructive criticism. The instructor will then give each student a grade for his or her own Milepebble or Milestone report.

The key to earning an "A" is not putting in long hours, the key to earning an "A" is to follow the schedule, come to class and lab, and to think creatively and deterministically (can you write a spreadsheet to justify and optimize major design decisions, such as the size of a motor?). The student's grade will thus be largely based by how well the student learns the design process taught in 2.007. If you wait until the last couple weeks to "power out your machine," you will fail (D grades are indeed given to students who try and do everything the last few weeks of the course, even if their machines work well) not only in 2.007, but also in the real world! There is NO curve in this class. We hope everyone earns an "A."

• An "A" is for a student you would be happy to lead the design of a major product (as they get more education and experience, but you see them as this type). These students are self-starters and can learn by finding and studying needed materials when they realize they are lacking in knowledge. These are also the students who create new ideas and identify tasks to be done in order to complete a project according to schedule. (Truly understands the fundamentals and can use them to solve challenging engineering problems)
  
• A "B" is for a good solid potential engineer that sometimes needs guidance, but overall can be given a task and will complete it effectively. They can usually pick things up from references as needed. (Mostly understands the fundamentals and needs some help to address challenging problems)
  
• A "C" is for the student who needs a lot of direction. They ask a lot of questions because they never bother to study or come to class or read the notes, as opposed to asking questions after trying to first think for themselves. They expect to be spoon fed because they do not have the time to put in the effort. However, they do have the basic intelligence to be successful when they want to be. On a project, they must be given a specific task and solution direction instructions. These are also the students who just showed up at the end. (Need help to grasp the fundamentals and needs help to understand basic problems)
  
• A "D" is for the student who is never around much but manages to get a machine to work, they never justify any of their engineering decisions (they meet no milestones except the last one) and are not part of the team (lab section). (Have you really grasped the fundamentals? Are you really ready to move on?)
  
• An "F" is for a no-show total loss that never accomplished anything, and barely even tried. They should have dropped the course, but were too out of it to do so.

COME TO LECTURES AND LABS AND DO THE WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS. Create a schedule for all your courses and activities, noting milestone due dates, exams, etc. Use the plan as a reminder to not fall behind! If you are falling behind, you need to ask for help, but also ask yourself if you are doing TOO much!

If you follow the schedule and work smart on the milestone reports, you can earn an "A" without ever having to spend an evening or a weekend in the shop. THE DESIGN PROCESS WORKS! 2.007 is a 12-unit course designed to be completed on time and on budget!


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