Description: In IED (Introduction to Engineering and Design), students learned the basic steps in the design process and used these skills throughout the year in different projects. For the visual design project, working in teams of three, with two people being from a school in Montana as well as myself from Glenelg, we were tasked with designing and building a toy using Autodesk inventor, a software that allows you to create 3D images on a computer. Because of the distance and time difference, we were able to communicate through emails and text messages as well as taking advantage of Google Drive to insure that everyone had a chance to give input on the project. For our final presentation, which can be viewed below, we decided to include all of the documents and decisions that we made in our PowerPoint to really give viewers a clear understanding of what the project and process entailed.
Why did you choose this project? One of the first steps in the design process is brainstorming. In this project, each team member came up with three different ideas of what we could design. We then took all nine ideas and used decision matrices to decide on a final design. The excavator ranked in the top three for all three group members because it was aesthetically pleasing, a reasonable size, and had several moving parts.
Reflection: Throughout this entire project, I was constantly amazed at how well my team members and I were able to communicate and accomplish the work we needed to, even though we lived in different time zones. I was also amazed that we were able to distribute the tasks so evenly amongst ourselves so one person didn't feel like they were carrying a heavy burden. This project truly taught me the importance of brainstorming early on in the process and documenting every decision and idea that we had. Because we had worked with Autodesk Inventor so many times throughout the year, this project was a great capstone to end the year by using all of the skills and techniques that we learned and putting them to use in this team project. Below, please find an attached PowerPoint describing the design process of this visual design project. It includes visual representations of several essential components of the design process, including decision matrices, a gantt chart, and a disassembly chart. This PowerPoint was created by myself along with my two group members from Montana.