The Engineering Process

The Engineering Process Review

Lesson 1 and 3

The Design Process

• The design process is the process engineers follow to solve problems.

• The design process has 5 steps.

The Design Process

• The 1st step is finding a problem and brainstorming ideas to solve that problem.

• The 2nd step is planning and building a prototype.

• The 3rd Step is gathering data to test and improve the prototype.

• In the 4th step engineers may need to redesign and make improvements.

• The last and 5th step is to communicate their results.

Multiple Choice

What is the main goal of the design process?

• To write reports

• To make things

• To find solutions to problems

Multiple Choice

What is the first step in the Design Process?

• Planning and Building

• Finding a problem

• Testing and improving

Multiple Choice

Engineers designed plans to make freezers for food. What main problem did freezing food solve?

• How to keep food fresh

• How to make ice cubes

• How to make ice cream

Multiple Choice

How did these students solve the problem of how to get in and out of their tree house?

• They built a rope ladder

• They built steps on the tree trunk

• They climbed branches to reach the tree house

Multiple Choice

What is the final step in the design process?

• Test and improve

• Planning and building

• Find a problem

• Communicating the results

How Do Designs Get Better Over Time?

• Engineers often come up with newer and better designs for inventions.

• For example, engineers have come up with new designs for cell phones.

• Forty years ago, cell phones were bulky and heavy. Today, the smallest cell phone is not much bigger than a watch!

Technology

Technology is anything that people make or do that changes the natural world.

Technology meets people’s wants and needs.

Technology Through Time

• Technology is always changing.

• An example is trains: The earliest trains were dragged along grooves in the ground.

• Today super-fast trains move at over a hundred miles an hour.

Technology and Society

• Technology and society are connected.

• Technology affects what people do and how they live.

• Trains are an example of how people move using technology.

• New technology helps trains meet people’s needs and wants.

Multiple Choice

What is technology?

• Anything made by nature

• Anything that costs a lot of money

• Anything that people make or do that changes the natural world

Multiple Choice

Dishwashers and clothes dryers are fairly new technologies.

Which is a way that these appliances changed people’s lives?

• They make dishes and clothes last longer.

• They never break, so people do not have to worry about them.

• They make these chores take less time, which lets people to do other things.

Multiple Choice

Which of these technologies can transport people the farthest distance in the shortest amount

of time?

• an airplane

• a bicycle

• a bus

• a skateboard

Multiple Choice

What is the correct order of the design process?

• finding a problem, planning and building, communicating, testing and improving, redesigning

• finding a problem, planning and building, testing and improving, redesigning, communicating

Multiple Choice

Can the design process help an engineer design a bridge?

• true

• false