Good Enough: Advanced Prototyping Techniques for Product Design

10 Week Course

Credits: 3

Abstract

The term “Good Enough” gets a bad reputation as the motto of slackers, but it is actually the mentality for how a designer should approach their product creation. There are inherently endless competing constraints that compose each product; cost, timeline, features, functionality, durability, weight, etc. The master of product design can massage each of these elements to just the right level to sufficiently serve the product, but any more and it takes away from something else. ie., an overly durable product risks being too heavy, expensive and take too much time to develop.

The same mentality going into prototyping. What is the fastest, most direct way to answer the questions standing between the concept in your head and making it a reality?

This course has been developed to fill the void between the d.school and the PRL. The d.school is wonderful at capturing the human element through user engagement prototyping, but mostly operates in the realm of cardboard and Xacto blades. And mechanical engineers tend to get caught up operating between CAD and 3D printing. How can you employ the technical skills of the PRL with the power of the d.school’s human centered design process to most realistic answers to your complex prototyping questions?

The modern day designer and engineer needs to be able to utilize a wider range of skills to answer questions that are expanding in their complexity and transcend discipline. This course is designed to show you how to add more non-traditional techniques and skillsets to your arsenal to help you move quicker and more efficiently towards realizing your products through a multi-disciplinary approach.

Course Structure

The arch of this course follows the construction of a “smart” product over the 10 weeks by breaking it up into 5 two week modules:

  • Concept Generation

  • Mechanical

  • Electrical

  • Software

  • Connectivity

In each of these modules, you will be introduced to a handful of novel prototyping techniques aimed at rewiring the way you think about prototyping from parasitic prototyping techniques to mixed fidelity to Wizard of Oz prototypes. Each week will contain a new prompt for which you will be building a quick intention prototype; the course will be extraordinarily hands-on, getting students to act quickly and develop their prototyping processes.

The learnings from each of these modules will culminate in the build of a novel experience prototype that contains mechanical, electrical and software components to help you explore ideas on a holistic, more realistic level.

Pre-Requisites

Good Enough is designed to be for ME/Product Design students that:

  • have taken ME103/203 and likely ME128/318

  • have some basic mechanical skills and have made some physical prototypes in the PRL before

  • have done some basic Arduino programming

  • have done some object oriented programming before (preferably Java, but not important)

Interest Level

In order to start gauging interest and gathering feedback from students on how this might fit into their academic journey, we would love to hear about you!