Applied Minds
Research Report and Presentation
200 points
REVISION: Oct. 21, 2015
We are about halfway through Applied Minds=How Engineers Think by Guru Madhavan. In the first four stories, we discover how engineers help each other through decades of research and diligence. According to Jim Plummer, the former dean of engineering at Stanford University, we find that “engineers are integrators who pull ideas together from multiple streams of knowledge.” (12)The core of the engineering mind is “modular systems thinking”. This is the ability to understand that nothing is stationary and everything is linked. This mind set has three essential properties: 1.) the ability to “see” structure where there is none; 2.) adeptness at designing under constraints; and 3.) the ability to make considered judgements concerning solutions and alternatives.
Directions: Select a partner. Choose an engineering achievement of interest to the two of you and determine who is responsible for its creation. You are to follow the format that Guru Madhavan uses in his book. Consider yourself writing an additional chapter to his book.
First, select something of interest to the two of you that was designed by an engineer. Examples: phone camera, 3D printer, swords, Chevy’s small block, guitar, etc.
Next, introduce an engineering design and introduce your engineer and his/her design in the first paragraph. This will lead up to the fact that someone created something, someone else built off of it, and the third person created the final product.
Next, research what previous inventions may have been vital to its’ creation. Example: In order to create the radio-frequency-electronic chips needed to track runners in a marathon, we had to look at the invention of the KarTrak – an optical sensor system developed in the 1950’s-1960’s by David Collins; the UPC codes invented in the 1970’s by George Laurer; and the bar codes created by the convergence of David Collin’s scanner technology and George Laurer’s Universal Product Code.
Next, research the previous inventions and their engineers. Introduce each engineer briefly and explain his/her invention’s necessity to the creation of your engineer’s design. By introducing your engineer, I mean give their date of birth, (so we can place the century) their profession, their engineering title, and describe how they designed their invention.
Finally, tie everything together and present the value of your engineer’s design.
Use a format that is similar to the one used in the book. Introduce your topic, explain how each of the other engineers contributed to the final creation and write a conclusion. Using the essential properties of the engineering mind set, explain how structure, constraints and trade-offs were used to complete the engineering achievement you have selected. Create a PowerPoint presentation of the creation and completion of this engineering achievement.
Final Products:
-A three-brad folder/report cover containing the following:
a.)a cover sheet with a picture of the engineering achievement you are researching
b.)a title page
c.)a research paper that is formatted like the next chapter in Madhavan’s book that explains how the essential properties of the engineering mind set
were used
e.)proper citation of all sources, using the APA format
-A PowerPoint presentation providing us with a visual of your paper with all citations on the last slide (APA format)