A Case Study of a Systematic Iterative Design Methodology and its Application in Engineering Education

Abstract

Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclical process of idea generation, evaluation, and design improvement until the design requirement is met. It is a widely used design strategy due to its intuitive nature and effectiveness in facilitating design improvement. As technologies advance rapidly nowadays, the level of complexity of design problems also increases. It is often impossible to develop a good design solution in the first attempt, making the effective application of iterative design strategy even more important. Over the years, researches have been carried out to refine the iterative design strategies and attempts have been made to integrate these design strategies into engineering education. Nevertheless, more efforts should be expended in the field of engineering education to encourage effective use of iterative design strategies by both educators and students. To this end, this paper presents a case study on the development of a plastic foaming visualization system to demonstrate the effectiveness of the axiomatic design approach, which is a systematic iterative design methodology. The methodology is based on two previously established design axioms that were designed to guide idea generation, as well as to streamline analysis and evaluation processes in a product development cycle. In addition, this paper explores possible methods to improve students’ learning experiences by integrating iterative design elements in engineering education with regards to course design and assessment/evaluation tools.