Designettes in Capstone: Initial Design Experiences to Enhance Students' Implementation of Design Methodology

Abstract

Capstone design courses are intended to provide a culminating experience for senior undergraduate engineering majors. Universities vary in how they implement the instruction and implementation of the design process in their capstone courses. For example, many have a separate class in design methods, followed by a one-semester capstone course where teams work on a "design, build, test" project. Other institutions teach design methodology incorporated into the capstone design project in what is often a two-semester capstone sequence. In the cases where design methodology is incorporated into a two-semester capstone course, it is possible that this is the students' first extensive exposure to design methods and process. In that case, students may be experiencing methods such as "Customer Needs Analysis", "Functional Decomposition", "Concept Generation", "Concept Selection" and "Prototype Planning" for the first time. From a constructivist educational standpoint, it can be problematic for students to apply these design techniques for the first time on what is often a complex, real world capstone design problem. One solution to this problem is to incorporate a short design experience at the beginning of the two-semester capstone course. This can allow the students an initial experience with the design methods that can provide a "learning scaffold" for their implementation of the full suite of design methods over the course of a two-semester project. For the last three years, we have implemented three versions of a short, introductory design project (i.e. designette) in our twosemester capstone design sequence. In our uses of the designette project, the suite of five core design methods mentioned above were taught in an abbreviated form. However, in one year the designette lasted ten class hours, the next year's designette lasted 14 class hours, and this past year's project lasted seven class hours. The longest designette allowed for greater depth in the initial coverage of the methods and also provided greater time for prototyping and testing. Of course this was at the cost of consuming a greater percentage of the overall time allocated for the actual capstone design project. This paper reports on the implementation details of the designette projects, focusing in particular on advantages and disadvantages of the different implementations in the most recent years. Faculty and student feedback indicated that the use of the designette does increase student familiarity with the design methods. However, more subtle questions such as the number of lessons allocated for the designette and the depth of coverage of the design methods have much more complicated assessment results.

Designettes in Capstone: Characterizing the Impact of Early Design Experiences on Students' Capstone Education

“…Through use of several data sources, several observations were made that address some initial hypotheses of this research and can be compared to previous research on the characteristics of successful implementation of the designette. 8 From student and faculty feedback, it was observed that unrelated designettes highly valued the designette experience, and the teams felt the topic selected was scoped appropriately to make progress. The unrelated teams also seemed to perform slightly better at the Customer Needs and Concept Selection design steps.…”

“…Of particular relevance to this paper's research is the concept of a "designette." 8,16,17,18,19,20 Originally coined at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), designettes a are described by the originators as "glimpses, snapshots, smallscale, short turnaround and well-scoped design problems that provide a significant design experience." 16 The use of designettes was "found to increase students' self-perceptions of their ability to solve multidisciplinary problems."…”

“…The use of mini-designs was shown to create students with a "more holistic understanding of the design process," and achieve a "slightly more rapid increase in understanding." 8,19 The duration of designettes has been studied previously. 8 Versions of the designette that took approximately 3 hours, 6 hours and 10 hours of student time were compared.…”

“…8,19 The duration of designettes has been studied previously. 8 Versions of the designette that took approximately 3 hours, 6 hours and 10 hours of student time were compared. The advantage of the shorter designette is simply that the design team can address the actual capstone project sooner.…”

“…5 Some schools have a separate course in design methods. 6,7,8,9 This would then be followed by either a one or two semester capstone course. Other schools integrate the instruction in design methods or processes into the one or two semester capstone experience.…”