Question

Explain the merits of the “engineering design approach”, and the risks associated with not following such a methodology.

Answer 1

The engineering design process is a series of steps that engineers follow to come up with a solution to the problem. Many times the solution involves designing a product (like a machine or a computer code) that meets certain criteria and/or accomplishes a certain task. This process is different from the steps of scientific method, which you may be more familiar with. If your project involves making observations and doing experiments, you should probably follow scientific method. If your project involves designing, building and testing something, you should probably follow the engineering design process.

Engineering design process involves following areas:-

• Define:- Attend to a board range of considerations in criteria and constraints for problems of social and global significance.
• Design:- Break a major problem in to smaller problems that can be solved seperately.
• Optimize:- Prioritize criteria and consider trade offs and assess and social and environmental impacts as a complex solution is tested and refined.

Advantages of Engineering design approach

• It brings out the creative potential of the learner.
• It supresses the sprit of copying in class.
• It is student-centered as learners play active role in planning the practical lessons and skills.
• It relates learners learning outcomes to real life situations.
• It imbibes the sprit of researching in the students.
• It encourages the learners to became aware of the problems around them.

Risks associated with not following Engineering design

• Chances to improve work efficiency will reduces.
• Creativeness in work reduces sometimes which results in failure of projects.
• Researching skills of learners will not improve and work or project becomes inefficient.
• Most of the problems may arise, where learners can't able to solve them easily without engineering design process.