Engineering Design Process GK12 Module

6th Grade Science

Traci Abney

Module Overview

• Encourages students to think like engineers by following a design process common throughout engineering

The Design Process1. Define the problem

2. Develop Ideas

3. Make a Sketch

4. Do some Math

5. Build

6. Test

7. Deliver

Module Overview

• Introduction to engineering

• Beam building activity• Catapults• Engineering drawing• Kanban paper airplane• Uranium transport vehicle

design competition

Kanban Paper Airplane Activity

• Using engineering to solve manufacturing problems

• Objective: Students find optimal method to produce paper airplanes– Quantity– Cost– Quality

• Kanban(Japanese) means sign or placard, and comes from the cards used on assembly lines to signal that parts are needed.

• “Pull” manufacturing is a visual replenishment of goods, where only is produced what is demanded by the next work center.

Learning Objectives

Students should be able to:

• Apply engineering methods to manufacturing

• Understand a “pull” manufacturing process

• Use engineering concepts to design an optimal process

Procedure (Before Activity)

• Have stacks of about 75 pages of scrap paper per group ready• Prepare a correctly completed paper airplane example as shown

below• Split the class into groups of about 8-10 students

Procedure (With Students)

1. Number off students 1-7 in each group (manufacturing company)

2. Demonstrate how to build the paper airplane3. Ask the students to perform their task as fast

as they can for 5 minutes4. After the 5 minutes, count how many airplanes

each group has completed5. Regroup and promote discussion about what

could be done to make the process more efficient

Important Discussion Topics• Goal is to create the most airplanes, at the lowest

cost, with good quality • Introduce students to pull manufacturing

– Reduces waste and creates a smoother flowing assembly line

• Teamwork, efficiency, and bottlenecks– An assembly line where students are in order of folds is

quickest– Extra students should be doubled up on the harder

folds because they tend to take longer • Some students were sitting idle while others were backed

up with inventory (bottlenecks)– Entire group works together to create a final product– Waste should be minimized because every time a

material is scrapped it costs the company money– Quality is vital because if the plane cannot fly, the

company will lose both time and money

Scrapped planes

6. Separate and rerun activity using pull manufacturing7. Students can only perform their task when there are no planes

waiting for the next person in line to fold (absence of a plane can be considered the Kanban signal)

8. Implement any other ways discussed to increase the efficiency of the process and have a quality check upon completion

9. Again give the groups 5 minutes to produce the most airplanes10. After the 5 minutes, count the number of paper airplanes

produced and the number of unfinished airplanes or scrapped airplanes

Procedure (With Students)

Fold 1 Fold 2 Fold 3 Fold 4

Fold 5Fold 6Fold 7Quality

Check

Kanban Signal

Kanban Signal

Kanban Signal

Kanban Signal

Kanban Signal

Kanban Signal

Procedure (With Students)11. Use a spreadsheet (shown below) to calculate a representative

profit made by each company (group of students)• Each finished airplane is worth 5 million dollars• Wasted material costs the company 3 million dollars

12. Regroup and discuss the differences in the two systems and how the improvements worked

Questions?

Contributors:

Adam Nathan, Don Knobbe, Lisa Picker