Educating Future Engineers by Learning about Design Processes

I had the pleasure of attending the Clive L. Dym Mudd Design Workshop at Harvey Mudd College earlier this month. There were many good talks about design research and some discussion of the  skills that engineering students in the future need to learn.

I was given the opportunity to present a poster based on an abstract that I submitted.  You can find the extended abstract here.  The short abstract follows: 

Engineers in the near future should have strong analytical skills, practical ingenuity, and creativity. These engineers should also be dynamic, agile, resilient, and flexible; that is, they should be able to adapt. Consistent with this view, this paper presents a specific vision of what these engineers should be able to do in the years ahead to adapt to the ever-changing needs of society and a vision of how design education should adapt as well.

Article in Wiley StatsRef

My article Rational Decision Making was published in Wiley StatsRef:Statistics Reference Online.  The article discusses the following topics:

• decision making;
• decision theory;
• decision analysis;
• game theory;
• multicriteria decision making;
• risk;
• uncertainty; and
• rationality.

Here is the abstract:

Rational decision making requires executing an appropriate decision-making process to select the best alternative. This can be challenging when information is uncertain or when time is limited. This article describes three important perspectives on decision making: (i) the problem-solving perspective, (ii) the decision-making process perspective, and (iii) the decision-making system perspective. This article describes important concepts from these three perspectives, including rationality, multicriteria decision making, group decision making, decision making under uncertainty, game theory, contexts for decision making, decision-making processes, and techniques for modeling and improving decision-making systems. Understanding and applying these concepts can improve decision making. The article will first consider the challenge of selecting the best alternative, which is the problem-solving perspective. Then, the article will discuss the decision-making process perspective: how people make decisions. Finally, the article will describe decisions from the decision-making system perspective by considering the decision-making behaviors and information flow within organizations and how to improve those decision-making systems. This article also provides numerous references to sources that provide additional details about rational decision making.

How to prevent smartphone battery fires

The battery overheating problems of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 have led to various efforts to mitigate the risk:

• The company recalled the smartphone, so consumers should return or exchange it.
• Airlines have banned the use of the smartphone or placing it in checked luggage on their flights.
• A software update from Samsung will limit battery charging to 60% of capacity.
• Some tech advice websites suggest disabling applications and background processes, limiting the use of games and web browsing, not using the device while recharging the battery, and avoiding third-party replacement batteries.

These suggestions range from risk avoidance to reducing the risk of overheating to reducing the consequences of overheating.  Many uses may simply accept the risk.

Links:
CPSC recall announcement: http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2016/Samsung-Recalls-Galaxy-Note7-Smartphones/
Bloomberg article about software update: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-14/samsung-limits-note-7-battery-charging-to-prevent-overheating
Tips: http://gadgetstouse.com/gadget-tech/avoid-overheating-problems-smartphone/18946
Photo: A Samsung Galaxy S3 that exploded in 2013, from Le Matin.

Origami design process

In their article in the Journal of Mechanical Design, Jessica Morgan, Spencer P. Magleby and Larry L. Howell presented a design process for mechanisms that use origami (folding).

Their design process can be viewed as a separation in which there is a set of logically related decisions that must be made (subproblems that must be solved):

1. Decide to use origami solution.
2. Select the general material behavior options (hybrid, rigid, multiple, flexible).
3. Select a seed origami (fold pattern).
4. Choose modifications to the fold pattern, including the actuation method, the thickness, the hinge, and the manufacturing method.
5. Select the precise material.

Their paper lists some aerospace applications, including bellows to protect drill shafts on interplanetary rovers, an expandable habitat for the International Space Station, and
a parabolic antenna.

Reference:
Morgan J, Magleby SP, Howell LL. An Approach to Designing Origami-Adapted Aerospace Mechanisms. ASME. J. Mech. Des. 2016;138(5):052301-052301-10. doi:10.1115/1.4032973. 
http://mechanicaldesign.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/article.aspx?articleid=2513965&resultClick=1
 

Estimating Cost and Time at NASA

The U.S. Government Accountability Office investigated NASA's program to build the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft and released a report that recommends changes to how NASA assesses the cost and schedule risk of these programs.

According the GAO, there are both technical challenges (such as the heat shield for the Orion spacecraft) and management challenges.  The two are related, of course, because "technical challenges could result in cost overruns and schedule delays."

For assessing the cost and schedule risk, NASA used a joint cost and schedule confidence level (JCL) analysis but followed few best practices for estimating cost and schedule.  In particular, "the Orion cost estimate met or substantially met 7 of 20 best practices and its schedule estimate met or substantially met 1 of 8 best practices."  The GAO concluded that "Without sound cost and schedule estimates, decision makers do not have a clear understanding of the cost and schedule risk" and recommended that NASA managers "perform an updated JCL analysis with cost and schedule estimates in line with best practices."

Links:
GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-620
Paper on JCL methodology: http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2013-5524

Search Strategy for Pokemon Go

How do you find the Pokemon in Pokemon Go?  Just for fun, I developed a search strategy that has three phases: Explore, Calculate, Search.  You can find a description in my report.  Please let me know if you have suggestions or know of related work.

Book Award

At the IIE Annual Conference in Anaheim last month, Engineering Decision Making and Risk Management received the 2016 IIE/Joint Publishers Book of the Year Award.  I'd like to thank Gino Lim, who nominated the book, and those who supported this nomination.