Tag: Creativity

Engineering Design – Functional Decomposition

I am working with an engineering team right now to develop a machine. We are at the Functional Decomposition phase where we are systematically examining the needed workstation functionality. I will have to relate the specific experiences some time but for now, I would like to share, for new followers, an example story of this phase. Please enjoy this short short story.

“Aaron, I can’t wait to show you what I’ve done.”

“Who is this?” Aaron spoke into the phone.

“It’s Ray. I can’t wait to show you the Functional Decomposition.”

“The what?”

“The Functional Decomposition, you know, for the machine. I was so excited about the project I did it over the weekend. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Sounds great.” Aaron said. “Gee, thanks. Let’s have you go first on the agenda at our meeting tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then. Eight o’clock sharp.” Aaron said.

“Was that really Ray?” Aaron thought. “That will be a first if he’s on time.”

Aaron arrived early to get the room ready but Ray beat him to it. All four team members were on time ready to go. Ray was bouncing with excitement so Aaron made no delay.

Ray began, “I started by thinking through the sequence our machine will need to go through. Then I wrote the sequence steps from the perspective of the machine.”

“The machine doesn’t have a perspective,” Bryce said.

The door opened and in walked Wesley, the chief engineer. “Hey, could you use an extra team member today?”

Ray made a fist with his right hand, thrust it forward a little and under his breath cheered, “Yes!”

“You bet,” Aaron said. “We appreciate any ideas you have. It seems that Ray was doing some deep thinking over the weekend.”

“Great,” Wesley responded. “Please keep going.”

Bryce repeated to Ray, “You make the machine sound like it can think.”

“Well, it will have a computer or programmable controller, so I guess you could say it can think. Look at it this way, the controller doesn’t know anything except what it senses by way of inputs like sensors and switches.”

“That’s right,” Kate said. “We learned all about that in my automation class. Controllers have inputs and outputs, or I/O for short.”

Ray continued, “The inputs will allow the controller to know the state of the machine so it can take action steps and perform functions or outputs. Here are the actions, and then I will show you what I recommend for functions.”

“Boy I’m glad he’s on our team,” Aaron thought. “I hope Kate doesn’t mind Ray working in her territory.”

Ray moved to the whiteboard. “First the machine needs to ‘Receive and Retain two cutters.”

“Wait a minute,” Bryce interrupted. “The specification says ‘one or more cutters.”

“I know, but for discussion purposes, let’s suppose the number of cutters is two. I noticed the other day that many of their batches are done in twos. This assumption will let us move forward in Functional Decomposition. Next, the machine needs to wait for and ‘Receive a Start indication’ from the operator.”

“Two start indications.” Kate reminded.

Ray continued step by step writing the generic machine sequence on the left side of the board, explaining his thoughts whenever a question was asked. Wesley added a little here and there, but generally sat in his chair nodding his head with a proud smile.

“Here are the steps of a machine cycle from beginning to end.”

  1. Receive and Retain two cutters
  2. Receive Start indications
  3. Detect operator safety clearance
  4. Move first cutter into position for blasting
  5. Seal enclosure
  6. Start blasting and blasting timer
  7. Wait for timer to expire
  8. Stop blasting
  9. Move second cutter into position for blasting
  10. (Repeat 6-8)
  11. Open enclosure
  12. Move cutters to pickup position
  13. Release cutters
  14. Reset all elements of the machine

“I’ve looked over this list several times and have decomposed the basic machine functions as follows.” Ray looked hopeful toward his bright-eyed team mates as he began writing on the right side of the board. “Essentially, we need to design a machine that will do these things.”

  1. Receive and Retain Two Cutters
  2. Move Cutters to Multiple Positions
  3. Provide a Containment Environment that can be opened
  4. Perform directed SiC (Silicon Carbide) Blasting and SiC recovery
  5. Provide operator Interface with Start, Stop, and Options Selection
  6. Provide Control System with Controller, Electrical, and Software
  7. Provide Machine Structure, Cabinet, misc

“Well,” Aaron said, “I think this looks pretty great. Thanks Ray. What made you think of this anyway?”

“Oh,” Ray looked over at Wesley who remained silent. “I was working on my motorcycle Saturday and I got to thinking about it’s different parts, and I started thinking about the functions each part or assembly performs. Like, the brake handles, cables, and calipers perform the stopping function, the motor and throttle perform the acceleration function, the wheels, bearings and tires perform the rolling and steering function, the bike frame…”

“We get the idea,” Aaron said.

“Anyway,” Ray continued, “When designing something new, you just reverse the process by determining the functions that are needed, and then you can figure out what parts you need to accomplish those functions. I did it for the AutoBlaster by starting with the sequence, then figuring out the functions needed for that sequence.”

“I’m gonna start doing more of that kind of thinking when I look at things.” Aaron said.

“Don’t do it at the dinner table,” Kate said. “Your wife might not be interested in what function the tables and chairs perform.”

“Good job Ray,” Bryce added.

“Yes, great job everyone.” Wesley leaned forward looking one by one at each team member in the eye. “You are making great progress and I can tell you are each being proactive.

(Excerpt from, “The Cutting Edge.” Read the full story at http://stemstories.wordpress.com )

Announcement – Engineering Stories in Paperback

Engineering Stories is now in paperback! Seven stories illustrated, formatted, and published in a handsome professionally bound book for some ernest reading. Listen to these endorsements by engineering academic professionals on the back cover.

“A fabulous collection of realistic engineering adventure stories! Ken Hardman connects the design and development process we teach in engineering school to the exciting challenges faced every day in real engineering practice.” Steven D. Eppinger, Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT, co-author Product Design and Development

“Ken Hardman’s stories about engineering are a joy to read. In them he captures the excitement of engineers developing solutions to realistic technical problems. By describing the engineering process through fictional characters in fictional settings, Hardman invites the reader to participate in the adventure of invention and discovery.” Henry Petroski, A.S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering, Duke University, and author of, among other books, To Engineer Is Human, To Forgive Design, and An Engineer’s Alphabet.

Engineering Stories are for:

  • The high school student who wonders if engineering is for them,
  • The K12 career counselor or teacher who needs more depth in explaining engineering to students,
  • The parent or grandparent or friend who would like to encourage a youth toward a satisfying, useful, and profitable career,
  • The college engineering freshman who is deciding what major to declare,
  • The older college engineering student who cries for ways to apply their engineering academics, anxious to experience real engineering, real companies, and real teams, and
  • The young engineering professional who wants to live the engineering experiences of there peers, gaining encouragement and insight to move forward in their career.

“Ken Hardman has done a masterful job—even spellbinding—in depicting what real Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) projects, and the people and circumstances involved in them, are actually like in the real world! Having myself been involved for more than fifty years in the types of projects that Ken writes about—and the use of case studies in engineering education for more than forty years—I can say without equivocation that Ken’s case writing ability is superb! Page after page challenges you to use your creative juices, and you feel as if you are right in the lab, conference room—or wherever—huddled around some hardware as part of a team effort working through the technical, as well as the people issues, to get the problem solved! Each engineering story has been carefully chosen to share important skills, topics and essential abilities of great engineers and scientists at work! These stories will help you experience—just about as close to first hand as possible—the joys of creation and problem solving which result from learning and applying skills in a world where all of us have the opportunity to make things better.” Robert H. Todd, PhD, P.E., Fellow of The American Society of Engineering Education, Professor Emeritus Department of Mechanical Engineering Brigham Young University

“Engineering Stories has boiled down the relationship between an engineering education and real-world engineering situations to its core! I know of no better introduction for engineering students preparing to work in industry. Anybody seriously considering a career in engineering will benefit from and enjoy reading Engineering Stories!” Braden Hancock, Mechanical Engineering Student at Brigham Young University, ASME 2012 Kenneth Andrew Roe Scholarship recipient

(If you are not inclined to acquire the paperback, continue to enjoy the same individual stories that are available for free at the authors website. Whether online or paperback, discover the career of engineering through Engineering Stories.)

http://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Stories-Realistic-Fiction-STEM/dp/1483949869

My Journey to Engineering – Part 2 “Drafting to Engineering”

(Continued from Part 1)

I was ten and a half years old when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar dust and into the history books. Wow, I thought, looking up that evening at the moon, half illuminated by the setting sun, how amazing is that? My childhood thoughts of “The Man in the Moon” were changed forever.

At my dad’s work back on earth, they manufactured wood panel products with routed or grooved patterns on the panel surface.  They had an automated machine that held the panel upright while a vertical and horizontally moving, 2-axis router would carve a design based on data from a punched tape and tape reader (yes, a punched tape; remember this was the 50’s and 60’s).  On one occasion, they were having trouble getting the plunge axis to work.  This axis would thrust or retract the router blade into or away from the panel.  If the router did not plunge or retract correctly, it would carve where it shouldn’t or it would miss carving where it should.  If this happened, they would have to scrap the panel at some expense.  They invited me, the managers 10-year-old son, to assist the machine by making sure that when it was supposed to plunge, that it did, and that when it was supposed to retract, that it did.  I stood in sawdust close to the machine and watched a light on the computer or tape reader and if the router did not retract, I would grab a bar and pull it out and vice versa.  The workers labeled me, ‘The Automated In and Out.’  Even though faulty, I thought that machine was amazing.

After routing some of their products, they covered them with thin wood-grain vinyl by coating the wood surface with adhesive, then vacuum-applying the plastic to the panels or other furniture (In the 30’s and 40’s, wood-grain vinyl was also used on cars called Woodies).  In some cases this plastic became a hinge for folding mitered panels into a box shape. How ingenious; how clever. Searching the internet, I found an old newspaper article on the company.

I enjoyed math, wood & metal shop, photography, guitar, hiking, skiing, and backpacking. I even used my mom’s sewing machine to make my own backpack from a kit. The backpack was nice, but I was more fascinated with the gears and shafts inside the sewing machine (when my mom wasn’t looking). In shop I made a model sailboat, a footstool, a gavel, a book shelf and a cedar chest. I enjoyed the creative artistic aspects of photo composition as well as chemical development of film and paper. I had a darkroom and equipment for developing black and white film and paper. I took my camera hiking, skiing, and to most activities.

Before the days of portable stereo’s, I built a wooden box and mounted an old 8-Track car stereo inside, with power supply and speakers and took it on outings with friends (No vinyl on this one). I enjoyed basic electrical wiring.

During high school, I took drafting every year.  I enjoyed it; my mechanical pencil was cool.  I enjoyed drawing mechanical objects and architectural structures and renderings.  I thought I was pretty good at it and for a time wanted to become an architect.  Working for my father over the years gave me lots of exposure to drawings, cabinetry, and construction sites; however, as I worked on wood products, I seemed more interested in the machines than in the items being built by them.

At the university I toured campus, talked to professors, and took aptitude tests. I narrowed it down to Communications and Engineering. No one in my immediate family was an engineer but it was drawing me in. Engineering seemed more practical and interesting because I wanted to design mechanisms and machines. I declared my major as Mechanical Engineering. I loved statics, dynamics, and kinematics. I would come home from numerical methods class and program the days learning into my Atari 800 (a personal computer with a whopping 16 kilobytes of RAM memory, no flash memory and no disc drive. I used a magnetic cassette tape to store my programs) I was proud of my accomplishments.

After a little research (before Google and even the internet) I figured out how to reprogram my computers’ joy-stick port for ‘output’ and used it to control a little electric motor I took from an old printer.

During college I continue to work for my dad. He allowed me (with little or no budget) to build a few simple gadgets and machines to help production. While cutting or assembling a thousand drawers for hotel room dressers and night stands, my mind was always on efficiency, “How can this job be done faster and more accurate?” I even explored books on Operations Research and the classical “Cutting Stock” problem so I could write software to help decide how to get the most out of a sheet of plywood.

Yes, I was drafted, no, drawn to engineering and my mind was always solving problems. I enjoyed the challenge and I couldn’t wait to graduate and go to work as a real engineer.

(Go to Part 3)

It’s time for Feedback

My objective in writing Engineering Stories is to encourage students to consider or continue careers in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM), show what it may be like, dispel a myth or two, and encourage creativity, problem solving, and the confidence to make the world a better place. It is also my hope that teachers will take an interest in using these stories to increase their own understanding of engineering and thus be better able to convey it to students.

As an engineer, I use feedback in determining if a mechanical system is on course; I need the same kind of feedback here. Please reply and let me know the following:

  1. What Engineering Stories did you read?
  2. What did you experience while your read them?
  3. Did the story make you more interested in engineering?
  4. How could the stories be improved to achieve the goal?

Thanks for enjoying Engineering Stories.

Respectfully,

Ken Hardman

A Life, or a Galaxy; Either way, you’ll make a difference

Engineering projects are not all rocket science, but a few are; Engineering designs are not all mathematical, but some are; Engineering teams are not all experts, but many are.

As an engineer, you might create a satellite to measure solar flare radiation headed to earth, or a deep space probe to listen to the stars; or, you might conceive how to help the blind see a sunset, or the deaf hear a symphony.

It may be someone else that develops the optimal trajectory for mankind’s first human trip across the solar system, but it could be you that develops the optimal orthopedic artificial hand making it possible for an amputee to control the trajectory of her own food from hand to mouth across the table.

Either way, you’ll change a life, or the world, or the solar system, or the galaxy, or…

Either way, you’ll make the world a better place.