Major Design Project Step 1
Problem Statement & Definition: Description & Rubric
Problem statement:
Children need to have direct experience with the world in order to make sense of and learn about it.
Playing is the way they practice growing up and the toys are the tools. Your major project is to develop,
design, and create a safe and educational toy for children of age 2~6 that meets the following objectives
and constraints.
Objectives:
1. Educational: must help with the development of one of the below:
a. Toys for physical or muscle development
b. Helps sensory (touch, sight, sound, taste, smell) development
c. Helps coordination and balance
d. Helps with self-expression & confidence
e. Helps with social development
f. Helps with problem solving
2. Attractive: must captures the child's interest. That is the children plays with the toy without
forcing or tricking them.
3. Safety: must not cause any harm to the child
4. Should be considered proper for their age!
5. Communicate designs through written, oral, and graphical reports.
6. Meet deadlines.
Constraints:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
It must be portable and cannot be stored in the FYELC.
It must have at least one 3-D printed/laser cut part.
Project must cost less than $80 to accomplish.
Your design cannot be a copy of an available product. It has to be at least 50% different.
It can have Sparkfun components but NOT required!
Instruction:
1. Revisit your team contract’s goals.
2. Update your Gantt chart showing all the steps you taking/took for this step with your progress on
the project so far.
3. Study 4 different users aged from 2~6 years old and answer the followings:
a. What do they like to do?
b. What skills do they need to learn in that age? (their needs)1
c. What do they know about their surrounding environment? (background info)
d. What the client (parents/professor) would want from your design? (Objectives?)
4. Have a brainstorming session and Prepare 4 Problem Statements for your choices using the
information you found from step 3.
5. Weigh the top four choices and as a group, decide which you will move forward with. Describe
how your team came to this decision with respect to commitment, transparency, inclusion, respect
and fairness.
6. Choose and perform one of the Problem Definition techniques (Duncker Diagrams, KTPA) to
help you write a Revised Real Problem Statement for your final choice. Do not present solutions
1
Use IEEE citation format!
in your problem statement yet. Your Revised Problem Statement should have the requirements
discussed in class to be considered acceptable.
7. Contains a clear, and well organized list of goal/objectives and constraints for your final choice
8. Project manager will:
a.
b.
c.
Compile and include a responsibility Matrix for your team’s work
Be responsible for editing and submitting a clear write up of your answers to parts 2-7.
Upload your group write up in two versions. (.docx and .pdf) to BB through MD step 1 link
Group Rubric
Item
General
Report
Clean presentation of work, all names present, uploaded on BB on time as
requested
Spelling & Grammar are thoroughly checked
Initial Problem statement clearly explains step 3 part a (x4)
Initial Problem statement clearly explains step 3 part b (x4)
Initial Problem statement clearly explains step 3 part c (x4)
Initial Problem statement clearly explains step 3 part d (x4)
Contains a clear, and well organized list of goal/objectives and constraints
Concisely addresses team decision making process with respect to commitment,
transparency, inclusion, respect and fairness.
Cleanly presents one of the problem definition techniques
Contains a clear, well thought out revised problem statement
Contains a well formatted Gantt chart with activities completed to this point
Responsibility Matrix of team members are logged in a clean, well formatted table
Total
Points
6
4
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
5
5
100