Abstract
AbstractPrototyping constitutes a major theme of design education and an integral part of engineering design academic courses. Physical prototypes and the model building process, in particular, have been proved to boost students’ creativity and resourcefulness and assist in the better evaluation of concepts. However, students’ usage of prototypes has still not been explored in depth with the aim of being transformed into educational guidelines. This paper presents an investigation of students’ reasoning behind prototyping activities based on the concept of Purposeful Prototyping, developed in the authors’ previous work. This is performed by identifying instances of prototype use in students’ design projects and by discovering which types of prototyping purposes they apply and to what extent, as well as by studying the relationships between purposes, early design stages, academic performance and project planning. The analysis of the results shows that prototyping can support students’ learning objectives by acting as a project scheduling tool and highlights the contribution of early-stage prototyping in academic performance. It is also confirmed that students’ limited prototyping scope prevents them from gaining prototyping’s maximum benefits and that they require strategic guidelines tailored to their needs. A new, improved list of prototyping purposes is proposed based on the study’s results.
Highlights
Introduction and backgroundPrototyping constitutes an integral and inseparable aspect of any product development process in both professional and academic practices
In 13 of the projects, there are not any physical prototypes found according to our used definition
Six of them clearly refer to the purposes of creating a prototype, and two of them even base their methodology on prototyping-driven design processes
Summary
Introduction and backgroundPrototyping constitutes an integral and inseparable aspect of any product development process in both professional and academic practices. Prototypes can take numerous forms, encompass multiple characteristics and can be made of a wide range of materials and fabricating methods depending on the designer’s needs and the project’s stage or nature, as seen in Figure 1 (Pei et al 2015). According to the taxonomy established by Michaelraj, Hannah & Summers (2008), the four main characteristics of a physical prototype are its size, its type, that is, a novel or a modified existing solution, its material and its fabrication method. In engineering design university courses, students have to build a wide range of different prototypes during their projects to support their learning objectives. This study has been primarily motivated by the importance of establishing the prototypes’ roles and purposes before initiating their creation, as well as understanding prototyping’s significance in engineering design academic courses and educational curriculums
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
