This course is offered at the University of Trento in the framework of four tracks offered by Trento within the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT DIgital) Master School programme:
This course illustrates the key steps of product design and developement and guide students, forming multi-disciplinary teams, into the development of a “product” as opposed to just a “project”.
We often see nice proof-of-concept research demonstration of useful tools in magazines or on web-sites. What does it take to make this a product? Everybody can sell a beautiful concept if you don't have to build it. Also anybody can build a amazing device if you don't have to sell it. This challenging course combines the two requirements. Students have to talk to customers to understand what features are relally needed and for what costs. Students have also to make sure they can actually deliver the technological solution (that the customers wanted).
For example, you can design scarecrow drone that flies over the crops with a predefined set-up. Unless you talk to farmers you'll never realize that random walk is necessary to actually scare the crows. Further, automatic charging as well as automated landing by computer vision and machine learning are mission critical, so that the farmer doesn't need to be there. All this with cheap mechanical, electronic, and computing solutions as the budget is extremely tight. You might have invented the idea of an iPod-style to provide news to the blind and your first technical solutions might have been to use Braille. Unless you talked (as the Joni group did) to the blind association, you are not going to discover that the majority of your customers in Italy have become blind later in life and a product that requires learning Braille at 50s-and-more is not going to be a great success. It is great for campers, to have an anti-theft device in your tent. Yet, what if it starts blasting if you just put a rucksack in the wrong position in your own tent?
All these products, and many more, were built by students participating to this course.
Regular and active participation in the teaching activities offered by the course (lectures, supervised and indipendent group work in multi-disciplinary teams) will enable students to:
This course should allow students to experience the creativity, intellectual transformation, leadership and value judgements skills which take to transform an idea into a working and sellable product.
The course requires attendance of its team works and presentations. Students who cannot attend should contact the course coordinator to check whether they can attend the course. We expect each student in the groups to know the theory from his or her Bachelor (being it Economics and Management, Computer Science, Electronical and Mechanical Engineering).
The instructors will use:
This course is normally 6ECTS credits for MSc students enrolled in Trento or for EIT/ICTLabs students joining Trento as exit students. For other students the credits are calculated as follows:
Grading of the PD&D Part is organized as follows:
Critical to the successful achievement of the maximum grade is the ability of the group to demonstrate that they have talked to stakeholders (as taught in the course) and that their technical solution actually meet those very requirements that they have reported.
Karl T. Ulrich and Steven D. Eppinger. Product Design and Development. 5th edition, Irwin McGraw-Hill, 2012.
There is also an eBook with a subset of the chapters that is used as a textbook for Karl Ulrich's Product Design on-line Course on Coursera for 30$. You can go to McGraw-Hill on-line shop and then search for Karl Ulrich or ISBN:9781308099064.
Students are free to chose their product idea. See the past courses for possible suggestions and ideas.
| Date | Topic | Slides | Other Material |
|---|
To be defined when the calendar is available (around January)
| Date | Topic | Information | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid March | Concept Feedback Sessions | Presentation of your draft concept ideas | |
| Mid April | Design Feedback Sessions | Presentations of your draft product architecture | |
| End April | Design Feedback Sessions | ||
| Early May | Define Your Hardware Lists | Each team should specify a final list of material that they need to buy to assemble their product | |
| End May | Product Feedback Sessions | Presentations and discussion on key issues of your product | |
| Early June | Product Feedback Sessions |
| Date | Topic | Grade Points | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Late March | Concept's Idea Canvas Show at EIT CLC | 10/30 | Each team will produce a concept's idea canvas to clarify the key strong points on their product |
| Early May | System Design Poster Show at EIT CLC | 10/30 | Teams will produce a detailed architecture and a poster explaining how their product will work |
| Mid June | Product ShowRoom | 15/30 | Each team will have a small budget for hardware/software and will have to actually present a working product |
