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Problem Definition
In this part you describe the problem you set out to solve. You provide sufficient detail so someone can
both understand why the problem is significant and how it has been solved in the past. Your problem is
further detailed by providing key design requirements that the solution must meet.
The problem definition section should have the following subsections using the suggested labels for
each subsection:

Problem Scope Ashort paragraph explicitly stating the problem to be solved.

Technical Review This section describes why the problem is important. It is a long section
providing background information of the problem. It contains a state-of-the-art technical
review that brings the reader up to speed to the current state of the field which you are working
in. Chances are that the reader is not an expert in the field, as you are. Even if the reader is an
expert, he or she will appreciate a comprehensive review of the field.

The review has two parts. The first part is amore detailed background to the field. For example,
if you are developing a medical device, the background would be a tutorial on the medical
condition being treated by the device. The second part describes the prior art relevant to the
problem, which means all of the existing technology and methods relevant tothe problem,
including the ways the problem isdealt with now. The reviewcan include commercial products,
academic journal articles and theses, and patents.

The technical review will likely have many citations to the source of the information with
citations listed in the Reference section. Citations and references should follow ASME, IEEE or
APA style.

Design Requirements Here, you describe the most important, measureable design
requirements that drove your solution to the problem. Generally, there are about five
requirements that are at the core of the design. Additional requirements are described in an
appendix. At the beginning of this section,describe the source of the requirements.Typically
requirements come through researching customer needs or in some cases the detailed
requirements are provided to the designer from the client.

The design requirements are a central element to the design report and must be concrete,
measurable criteria which can be tested. They should be based on acustomer need. For
example, "supports 80 lbs" and "has an emissivity greater than 0.8" are concrete, testable
requirements. "Looks nice," "comfortable," and "low cost" are user needs and not design
requirements. Refine them to measurable criteria, like "aesthetically rated above average on a
5point Likert scale" or "can be held for 5 minutes without fatiguing the average user's hand," Or
"parts cost less than $20 in lots of 100." Provide numeric values for all requirements. Numeric
values can be binary for requirements that are best expressed in true/false form. The reason for
having nunmeric values is that then it is easy to determine whether the design meets the
requirements when the design is evaluated.

Page 3 of 9
 It is helpful to present the key requirements, typically no more than six, in a table. The table
would include the design requirement, importance, units, marginal value and ideal value. For
each entry, text describing the requirement, its source and why it is important should be in
report body.

One last thing to consider when setting design requirements is that they must be tested by you.
If you do not (or cannot) test a requirement using a virtual prototype (computer model) or
physical prototype, then that requirement cannot be on your list of core design requirements.
For example, do not use the design requirement, "can withstand a half-mile drop test," unless
you are going to either make an analytical modelor empirically test out of a C-130.
For examples of problem definition sections, read a U.S. patent. Awell written patent generally has an
excellent description of the problem to be solved, the prior art and why the prior art does not
adequately solve the problem.

Design Description
In this part you describe what your solution is and how it works. You must describe your design in
sufficient detail that the reader understands exactly what you did. This section is high technical because
it dives down into the weeds of your design, but also must have a high-level overview so that the reader
does not get lost.

The design description section should have the following subsections using the suggested labels for each
subsection:

Overview In a few paragraphs, summarize your design at a high level. First describe what your
design does and then how it works. If appropriate, you can describe a scenario for its use.
Include an overview line drawing (hand or CAD) but no photographs. The reason is that it is
much easier to understand a design by viewing a line drawing than by viewing a photograph
because the line drawing is limited to showing only the most important elements. This is why
patents only have drawings and no photographs.

Detailed Description This section dives down into the details of your design. Use subsections
to guide the reader through this section as it willbe long and complex. Start the section with a
block diagram that shows the major functions or layout of the design, then use subsections to
drilldown into each block. For example, your design may have mechanical, electronic and
software components. After describing this at a top level, use a subsection todescribe each in
detail. Use additional block diagrams as needed. For example, a section on software would likely
include a flowchart or state diagram to help the reader understand what the code does. Do not
include complete code listing, electronic schematics or CAD working drawings in this section as
that would be too deep a level of detail. The place for those documents is in the appendices.
Use In this section, describe how your design is used. For example, if your design is a surgical
instrument,describe how the surgeon uses the instrument during a procedure. If your design is
newcoffee cup, describe how the consumer willuse the cup. If your design is a process,
describe how the process will be used. The purpose of this section is to provide the reader with
aclear picture of what the design does. Generally, this section is short.

Page 4 of 9
 your report. For examples, again look
The des0gn description part will be the longest part in the body of
patent describes a design by referring to one or
at a well-written U.S. patent. In particular, notice how a
more figures where key parts are annotated with numbers.

Evaluation evaluating your

verified that your solution works. You do this by
In this part you describe how you have section. It is not enough to
the problem definition
design against the requirements you outlined indemonstrate that it works. Evaluation could be through
also
provide a solution to a problem: you must
testing of a virtual prototype (computer model
experimentaltesting of aphysical prototype, throughFor example, you might confirm that your design
calculations.
and simulation) or by analysis and hand mass analysis inCreo or SolidWorks to
calculate the weight
requirement by using the
weight meets the the required natural
model. Or, you could put your physical prototype on a scale. To confirm textbook.
of the CAD calculate it by hand using the formula from a
trequency of a cantilever beam you could
that you constructed. It may
evaluation section is also where you describe any physical prototypes description section, but that is
The of the design
prototypes would not be part
seem odd to youthat physical works.
prototype is to determine if the design
because the purpose of building a
design and
where you summarize the strengths and weaknesses of your
Finally, theevaluation section is work.
describe recommendations for future
the suggested labels for each
The evaluation section should
have the following subsections using
subsection:
and an overview of the
an overview of your approach
Overview In this section, you provide state whether the approach was by
is where you
test plan for evaluating the design. Here simulation, hand calculations, user testing or
a
experimental testing of a prototype, computer
combination of these methods.

summary table of the key design

requirements from the problem
Ina new paragraph, include a column one states the
the table is that
statement section. A suggested structure for test method used to evaluate
column 3 has
requirement, column two has the target value and short.
evaluation section, so keep this summary
the requirement. The details come later in the
prototype. The description is top-level
Prototype Here is where you introduce and describe the prototype, what the prototype does and
and includes the purpose and objective for building the photograph. Reserve the detailed
a
an overview of its key features. If appropriate, include the section where you present the
description of the prototype for an appendix. This is also
tested through simulation.
computer model if you created a virtual prototype that you
subsection that describes how the
Testing and Results For each design requirement, create a
requirement was evaluated. Use a lab repot format, meaning that for each requirement,
provide an introduction that describes the requirement and why it is relevant, methods that
that presents what you found, and discussion
describes how the requirement was tested, results
target value for the reguirement was met. You
that interprets the results, including whether the discussion)explicit.
results,
might consider making the section headings (introduction, methods,
space to provide all of the
Think of it as a mini-lab report because you won't have enough
Page 5 of 9
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