ME 491 Proposals for Projects in ME 492 and ME 493

By ~~5:00 PM on December 5~~ 11:59 PM on Friday, December 8, student teams must submit a proposal that identifies team members and describes how the team will approach the design problem assigned to them for ME 492-493.

You can download the rubric for grading the proposal

The proposal includes the following major components.

Team membership and Structure
Client Needs, Market Opportunities and Design Challenges
Plans for completing the project
Key milestones and deliverables for ME 492 and ME 493

The required components of the proposal are described in more detail below. Teams may also want to consult the Roadmap for ME 492 and ME 493 to understand how their proposal fits into the activity in ME 492 and ME 493.

The proposal document should be approximately five to eight pages in length, excluding any appendices. Feel free to add page breaks so that major sections start on new pages.

The Big Picture

It's OK that you are thinking about how to solve your design problem, but that is not the purpose of the proposal. In fact, if you put a lot of solutions in the proposal document, you will show that your group has closed your minds to the potential for finding a good solution. At this point in the process, even if you think you have some good ideas, you should not have already decided on what your design solution will be.

Instead of describing your (current favorite) idea for the solution, the focus of the proposal is on (1) what is necessary to create a desirable design, including the potential conflicts in client needs, (2) the relevant design tools and engineering methods necessary to solve the problem, and how you will apply them, and (3) identification of the key steps (milestones and deliverables) on the path toward successful completion of the project.

Description of Proposal Components

Please use headings and subheadings to make the structure of your document clear. Please make sure that your final proposal clearly addresses each part of the assignment.

1. Team membership and Structure

Length: approximately one page.

For each project, student teams will have a minimum of 3 and maximum of 6 team members. I may assign additional students to teams that were formed by bid proposals if those teams have fewer than 6 members. Teams must accept and welcome any new member(s).

Team Members

Make a list of team members, and for each, give a concise list of skills from elective courses, practical engineering experience, and other experiences that are relevant to the project.

Example of a three-person team:

Jill Jones: jj@pdx.edu
Solid modeling, MATLAB programming, heat transfer, has 3D printer at home,
primary contact for team

Ali Allison: aa@pdx.edu
CNC machining, currently taking controls sequence, intern at Daimler, 4 years experience as lifeguard at public swimming pools

Cory Clark: cc@pdx.edu
Building energy modeling, statistics and R programming, works as bicycle mechanic

For the final project proposal, the list of team members will be given to you. For the optional bid proposal, the team composition is up to you.

Team Structure

Briefly describe the organization of the team. Do you have a designated manager? If yes, who is that person? If not, how will you coordinate your activity? At the very least, designate a primary contact person for the team.

2. Client Needs, Performance Specifications and Design Challenges

Length: two to three pages.

The best way to understand client needs is to meet with the client. Please adhere to the expectations for meeting with sponsors described on this web page for all interactions with sponsors. Note that the sponsors have already agreed to be helpful. Please thank them for their assistance with the project.

You will need to continue to identify client needs and define performance specifications as you work on the project after the end of the term. For the proposal, use your best understanding of the project at the due date.

Project Objective Statement

Using the format and style described in the textbook by Mattson and Sorenson, give a one-sentence project objective statement. See pp. 272-273 in the 4th edition and pp. 296-297 in the 5th edition.

The Project Objective Statement must be clear, concise and specific.
In one compact sentence, the Project Objective Statement encapsulates both the client needs and the teams broad goal to meet those needs. The project objective statement must include these three components

Scope/objective – what is the primary concrete objective?
Schedule – when will the project be completed?
Resources – what is your budget.

Market Requirements (Client Needs)

Make a list of roughly 5 to 12 primary market requirements for the project. Refer to Requirements Hierarchy in part 2 of the textbook by Mattson and Sorenson, pp. 282-283 in the 4th edition and pp. 306-307 in the 5th edition.

Do not rely only on the information provided in the project description on the D2L site for the class. Do not copy material verbatim from the project description. Reach out to the sponsor and, if possible, meet with them to discuss the requirements of their project.

In your discussion with the sponsor, identify any different groups of individuals who must use, maintain, transport or pay for the device or process that you are designing. Collect the needs from all of those users, tranlate the needs statements to a common format or writing style, organize the needs into groups and for each group identify a primary requirement.

Performance Measures

List up to 10 performance measures (a.k.a. performance specifications, metrics plus values) that your team has identified. There should be at least one performance measure for each primary client need.

From your list of market requirements and performance measures, create a system-level Requirements Matrix as described in part 2 of the textbook by Mattson and Sorenson. At this stage of design evolution, only include parts A through D:

A: Market Requirements
B: Performance Measures and Units
C: Requirements-Measure Relationships
D: Ideal Values

See pp. 284-287 in the 4th edition and pp. 308-311 in the 5th edition.

Design Challenges

Identify and briefly discuss the client needs that will be most challenging to meet. Why are these needs challenging, or what makes any particular need especially challenging? Is it a lack of familiarity (by the team) or lack of information about the technology? Is the team unaware of any existing models or examples of similar technology? Is the team unfamiliar with the engineering tools that will be needed to analyze and design the components or subsystems? Are there unfamiliar or exotic or expensive materials or components that will need to be purchased or found?

Only a few of the client needs will be most challenging. A plausible identification of the most challenging client needs demonstrates that you have a good grasp of the project.

3. Plans for completing the project

Length: two to three pages.

The purpose of this section is to demonstrate that you (1) have a good understanding of the work that needs to be done, and (2) you have a plan with that is reasonable within the scope of time and financial resources available for the project.

Design Techniques to be Used

Design techniques vary with the nature of the project.

Information Gathering: Briefly describe the methods for gathering more information about the design opportunity. For example, are you going survey potential customers who are not the client? Are observational studies helpful? The methods for information gathering should address the list of market requirements discussed in the preceding section. Refer to section 4.4, How to gather and process essential information, in the textbook.
Market Analysis/External Search: List any examples of products, or technologies that are similar to the device or process that you are going to design. Similar products provide benchmarks for competitive analysis, and related products might establish boundaries on what is feasible. Include an appendix with photos, URLs and other references to related products. The appendix is not included in the page limit for the proposal.
Prototype Development: Describe plans for intermediate prototypes the team will use to test ideas, evaluate competing concepts, measure subsystem performance. A final prototype in June 2018 is required. At this stage of project evolution, it is important to anticipate and plan for other prototypes (not just the final prototype) that help the team develop of design concepts and testing of subsystem performance.
Engineering Analysis: Briefly describe the ways that engineering analysis will be used in your design process. For example, what analytical and numerical models will your team develop to predict system and subsystem performance? What types of data analysis will be necessary in evaluating measured system performance? As much as possible, give specific, measurable objectives that will be achieved through engineering analysis.

Of course, the preceding list will be hard to fulfill completely at the start of the design process. You simply do not know enough about your project at this stage. However, you do have enough engineering experience to make some very good guesses at how you can find the necessary information, what similar or related technologies will inform your design, and what additional engineering techniques will be necessary to analyze, or measure the performance of your prototype solutions.

Physical and other resources needed

What major physical resources (materials, sensors, data acquisition equipment, fabrication tools, lab facilities and space, samples from the sponsor, etc.) will be needed to complete the project? At this early stage, be sure to identify the most costly or limiting resources.

For projects requiring extensive simulation, list the software packages needed and whether those packages are available in MCECS computer labs. If necessary software is not available in MCECS, explain how you will gain access to that software.

4. Key Milestones and Deliverables

Length: approximately one page.

The Roadmap for ME 492 and ME 493 web page provides an overview of the activities in Capstone course sequence. The roadmap is a starting point for identifying key deliverables and milestones for your projects. Using the roadmap as a starting point, provide specific deliverables and milestones that are specific to your project. Dates can be expressed by the number of weeks in the term as well as the term, e.g. "Spring Term, Week 5".

Deliverables include major reports, intermediate prototypes or other artifacts requested by the sponsor, and a final working prototype in June 2018. In the case of projects that involve process design the final prototype would be replaced by a demonstration of the design process and sample objects created with the process that demonstrate the effectiveness or capability of the process. As always, be as specific as possible about the features and performance capabilities of the final prototype.

Refer to notes on project planning for a definition of deliverables and milestones.

Document updated 2017-11-23.