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Introduction To Engineering Camera Lab - 0 Introduction to the Design Process. Agenda Presentation on reverse engineering. Let’s begin with a simple question:. What is engineering??. One possible answer, from the Oxford English Dictionary:. Engineering is:
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Introduction To EngineeringCamera Lab - 0 Introduction to the Design Process Agenda Presentation on reverse engineering
Let’s begin with a simple question: • What is engineering??
One possible answer, from the Oxford English Dictionary: • Engineering is: • i) “the application of science for directly useful purposes…” • ii) “the action of working artfully to bring something about…”
Which raises some other questions: • Is engineering just “applied science”? • Is the engineer’s job the same as the scientist’s? Engineers and scientists both solve problems, right? • If that’s the case, why are we in separate colleges at OSU?
More Questions • If engineers are just “problem solvers”, then how are we different from physicists, stock brokers, or mathematicians? • And while we’re on the subject, aren’t engineers famous for creating as many problems as they solve?
The Real Question • Is there anything essential about what engineers do that would clearly separate us from every other profession?
An Answer • Yes, there is: engineers generally are interested in creating something new and different, based on what we know (or think we know) to be true about the physical world. • The word that gets used a lot in this context is design.
A working definition of engineering: • Engineering is design performed in the presence of limiting factors and conditions.” • Design is the key: as engineers, we’re about creating new things, based on our understanding of the physical world.
What kinds of things do we design? • A new bridge (CE, WE); • A racing bicycle (ME, MSE, ISE, ChemE) • A fuel cell for NASA (Aero, ChemE, EE) • A new operating system (EE, CSE) • The key point: in every case, it’s new and somehow different than what came before.
What does NEW mean? • However, it’s almost never the case that our ideas are totally new. Almost every engineered object is an improvement or a refinement of someone else’s bright idea. • A few “for instances”…
“Smart” Car A two-passenger car for over-populated cities…
Planetary Explorer How about a robot explorer for a neighboring planet?
A new look at PCs • A totally new take on a venerable product:
An Initial Step • Good engineers and designers constantly look around to see what other smart folks have done, before they begin to work. • This avoids the problem of “reinventing the wheel”. (This technique is called “reverse engineering”.)
Analysis • When we talk about figuring out how the world works, we use the word, analysis. • Engineers spend a lot of time learning to analyze problems, situations, designs, and ideas.
More on Analysis • Analysis is crucial to engineering: without our tools for doing analysis, we’re not really engineering. We’re just guessing. • One thing that sets engineers apart from other people is our penchant for attaching numbers to things… and we have a lot of ways to do that…
What is analysis without design? • However, analysis all by itself isn’t engineering. It’s science – usually physics or chemistry. • (Warning: this is one professor’s view.) • It’s when we use analysis to help us create something new, that we’re actually engaged in the other side of engineering, synthesis.
Synthesis • A five-dollar professor-word for “design”. • It’s what we do when we put our analytic skills and our ideas to work creating something new. • It’s what sets us apart from most of the rest of the world...
How about limiting factors? • Usually we think of natural laws, but often the really severe limits are imposed by our fellow humans. • We call these limiting factors constraints, because they constrain our designs in some way. • Sometimes we see them ahead of time, sometimes we don’t…
Some typical kinds of constraints: • Performance • weight • speed • rigidity • Cost • Material • Manufacturing
Aluminum Cans A design constrained by manufacturing
Some questions to ask about any design: • What were the constraints? • How well did the designers deal with them? • Did they overlook any? • What tradeoffs did they make? • How could we design it better?
Kodak Single Use Camera: • What constrains this design? • Performance • Economics • Materials • Manufacturing • ???
How does the design constrain the manufacturing process? • The camera has to be: • Lightweight • Rugged • Light-tight • The parts themselves must be: • Cheap to produce • Easy to assemble • Very complex
This means we need a production process that can: • Make complex parts • Use strong, lightweight materials • Can produce lots of components very quickly and cheaply This leads us to injection molding… which you’ll get to see in a few weeks (Lab 5)
But first, we need to get a sense of how the camera works, and how it’s used. • First we’ll take some photos. • We’ll use the photos to estimate the shutter speed. • The we’ll use the photos to look at the optics of the camera. • You’ll learn how the flash circuit works. • Finally, you’ll see how the camera is manufactured.
