GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
ME 2110 - Creative Decisions and Design
Fall 2011
STUDIO III
INTRODUCTORY DESIGN PROJECT: FLOODED BUILDING RESCUE CONCEPT
In recent years there have been many instances of natural disasters that leave densely populated urban
areas flooded trapping thousands of residents on rooftops and in high rises. Consider the devastating
effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Irene this year. The flooding leaves 3-10ft of stationary water in
the bottom floors of buildings and on the streets. Rescue efforts last for days or weeks as emergency
response teams work to evacuate stranded civilians. Some areas have limited overhead access, due to
power transmission lines or other similar structures, eliminating the option to use helicopter-based
medevac response teams. The most crucial rescues, however, occur at hospitals where critical care
patients must be evacuated as soon as possible and safely transferred to new facilities. The rescue of
these patients is an extraordinarily challenging effort. The patients are commonly heavily sedated, thus
unresponsive, and dependent on a high-level of advanced medical equipment providing basic life support
functions. Furthermore, even the action of moving the patient from the heavy critical care beds to a rescue
gurney is potentially life-threatening and should be avoided if possible. They need crucial life support
lines from their heavy beds and cannot leave them. Your team has been approached to design a rescue
apparatus concept that can be used by rescue teams to evacuate trapped patients from a large urban
hospital that encircled by floodwaters, similar to the situation presented in the photograph in Figure 1.
Figure 1 –Typical Flooded Hospital1
Your task in this studio is to perform a design exercise on this product. Using the design tools presented
in lecture, you will need to complete the first 3 phases of design: Problem Understanding
(Customer/Product Requirements), Design Specifications, and Conceptual Design. This project will last
for 2 weeks.
1
“The New Katrina Flood: Hospital Liability”. Sheri Fink. Accessed September 12, 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/weekinreview/03fink.html.
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1) Deliverables due by the end of this studio (week of 12 September)
i) A completed Design Objectives Tree.
The team must show a preliminary understanding of the design problem by creating a Design Objectives
Tree (DT1). This can be completed by hand. The team will informally present this to the Instructor by the
end of the lab in order to discuss and revise your customer requirements and design objectives.
ii) A list of questions that the team would like to ask the customer about what is wanted in
the design. (1 page)
In design, you sometimes have the option to present your problem understanding to the customer to verify
that you are in agreement with what is wanted. This is your opportunity to ask questions. By the end of
lab, your team needs to email your TA a list of questions about the design that you would like the
customer to answer. Each team is allowed up to 1 page of typed questions (12pt font).
A FAQ sheet with pertinent question answers will be added to the course website by 4:00 p.m. EST
Friday, September 16th. The design concepts considered in your design should incorporate any additional
understanding provided in the answers to all the questions in the FAQ.
2) Deliverables due at the beginning of studio next week (week of 19
September)
i) A technical presentation of problem understanding and five (5) preliminary design ideas.
(In PowerPoint, limited to 7 min.)
Clearly describe the design Problem Understanding that the team has generated. Present a House of
Quality and explain how it has aided your understanding and what insight is has given your team. Present
a review of products currently on the market and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. List any
applicable patents that may limit or influence the team’s design project. (Any pictures/videos obtained
from the internet must have the corresponding source clearly indicated.)
Present the design specifications while highlighting the most crucial ones. Present a function tree that the
design must execute. Show a morphological chart and point out the most promising design ideas. Then,
clearly describe the functionality of your preliminary designs. The designs should be distinct from each
other. A change in color or size is not sufficient to qualify as a distinct alternative design.
The presentation will be given by a single member of the team who you nominate. Review the posted
lecture notes regarding technical presentation. This presentation has a large amount of content but only
limited presentation time. Each slide should be thoroughly planned out to maximize presentation
efficiency.
ii) A written document containing:
a) A list of all the available products that the team located. Give the product name, company,
price, and cite the source of product information. Put this list in an Excel document and
email this list to your TA.
b) A list of relevant patents. Give the patent number, title and inventor.
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3) Deliverables due at the beginning of studio in two weeks (week of
26 September)
i) A presentation on the team’s final design (In PowerPoint: 5 min.)
ii) A completed peer evaluation form for this studio team
iii) Two (2) hard copies and one (1) electronic (PDF) copy of a final report containing the
following:
1) Title Page
2) Abstract
 Standalone summary of this report’s contents
3) Introduction
 Define the customer’s needs\wants\desires and the overall product function.
4) Design Objectives
 Include succinct presentation of the problem understanding process followed and results from
problem analysis:
 House of Quality
 Function Tree
 Specification List
5) Design Overview
 Give a detailed description of the final design including quality CAD-generated figures that
show its components and how it operates.
6) A Discussion that presents:
 Four alternative design solution ideas. (That means 5 total designs).
 Written explanation of why you chose your design from among the five considered designs.
Use a structured evaluation process.
 Explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of your chosen design.
7) Conclusion
 Conclusions that this report has reached including the expected design specifications and
what components need more extensive detailed design
The report should include a maximum of seven (7) pages of writing, plus as many figures and tables as
necessary. The report should adhere to the format requirements detailed below:
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Times New Roman typeface
12pt font
1.5 line spacing
1.0” page margins
Figures, tables, citations after the complete body of text including appendices
Review the lecture notes regarding report writing. Email a PDF copy of this report to your section TA and
submit 2 printed copies of this report at the beginning of studio.
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