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Charles Smith

Portfolio: Courses Taught
Engineering + Chocolateering

 

ME110 New Product Development

This course introduces engineers to the interdisciplinary skills required for successful product development. In addition to engineering tasks, students learn about what other professions contribute to development, all in the context of creating their own product.

Some of the topics covered:

  • noneBrainstorming for new product idea
  • Concept Sketching
  • Market research/surveying
  • Focusing on customer needs / empathizing with the customer
  • Formal selection from among competing solutions
  • Benchmarking
  • Design for manufacturability (sheet metal, casting, injection molding)
  • Prototyping
  • Sales projections
  • Financial analysis & net present value
  • 'Pitching' their product

I guided the student teams in developing of the following products:

  • Hybrid Portable / Automotive MP3 player.
  • Headphone Cord Winder
  • Automatic Restaurant Kitchen Sanitization
  • Anti-Lock Bicycle Breaks
  • Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Prevention
  • Key chain Finder
  • Load Lock Orthopedic Brace
Anti-Lock bike brakes.
Various prototypes for a "lost item finder."
Rough and more refined MP3 player prototypes.
   
 

Freeform Cad

I created this course after noticing a hole in Berkeley's CAD curriculum: at no point are students given the chance to explore the modeling techniques needed to build the complex, ergonomic shapes that are appearing more and more frequently in consumer products. Solidworks was used for basic modeling, and Studio Tools was used for NURBS modeling. Topics covered include lofting, sweeping, design for injection molding, mold construction, industrial design, and modeling for an electronics client.

This toothbrush was constructed from a student sketch that they could model.
Studio Tools NURBS modeling.
A blending feature exercise in Solidworks.
   
 

Experimental Design

I adopted a Morgan Press injection molding machine, and created an experiment in which students try to maintain good fill and surface quality for a simple injection molded part while lowering a fictitious company's operating costs. Students are taught about Taguchi-style design of experiments (DoE) and full factorial analysis. These tools are then used to characterize the system.