This week’s selection is “The Engineering Design Process: An Introduction for Mechanical Engineers” by Peter Ostafichuk, Markus Fengler, and Antony Hodgson.
Engineering design is a discipline that can take years to master, but this book provides an introduction to the most basic concepts. It’s targeted at individuals wishing to do some design, but are unfamiliar with the steps required.
But design is easy, isn’t it? Don’t you just start modeling your objects?
No. That’s actually not how it’s done at all. There are plenty of steps before and after the actual modeling that must be done. These steps ensure the result will be functional, usable, and effective.
The process described in the book is pictured above, where you can see there is a logical sequence of steps required to accomplish any proper design.
You might think that this would be appropriate only for businesses operating in large groups, and while it is very necessary in those situations, there’s more to the story.
In fact ANY design project should go through these steps, even if there is only one person, you, involved. You may not take very long doing these steps, but by playing the roles of each step you can certainly greatly increase the odds of success in any design project.
Without executing these steps, even briefly, invariably leads to disappointment later when the designer realizes they’ve “forgotten something” or encountered an unexpected result. Iteration prior to putting in the big design effort is absolutely a requirement, otherwise much time could be wasted.
If you’re considering getting into designing parts to be 3D printed for projects, then this book could be very useful.
We’re an Amazon Associate and earn a small fee from qualifying purchases. Help support our 3D print news service by checking out this book!
Via Amazon
