Principal Investigator David Wallace
Co-investigators Tonio Buonassisi , Stephen Graves , Nannaji Saka , Jung-Hoon Chun , Martin Culpepper , Steven Dubowsky , Christopher Magee , Daniel Frey , David Gossard , Timothy Gutowski , David Hardt , Joseph Jacobson , Sang-Gook Kim , Maria Yang , Nicholas Patrikalakis , Sanjay Sarma , Warren Seering , Alexander Slocum
Project Website http://meche.mit.edu/research/design
In the Design research area, everything from a steam turbine to a gaming console is conceived, designed, fabricated, assembled, and delivered by an engineer who understands design, manufacturing, sustainability, and the supply chain.
Research Includes: Precision and machine design, product design and development, environment and sustainability, information and sensing, manufacturing process, and systems.
Design, Manufacturing, and Product Development is the complete set of activities needed to bring new devices, technologies, and services to the marketplace. These activities span the entire product life-cycle, from the identification of a market opportunity or need, through design, testing, manufacture and distribution, and end of useful life.
Design, Manufacturing, and Product Development is an integral part of the MechE program in that it satisfies two key criteria: it has a significant societal impact, and it offers significant intellectual challenges:
(*) Societal impact -- Engineering's primary value to society is its ability to deliver products and solutions that improve quality of life. Their benefits may include enhanced safety, convenience, cost-effectiveness, usability, functionality, and marketability. They can help people live longer and/or happier lives, and generate the material wealth required to fund and fuel continued engineering improvements.
(*) Intellectual challenges -- For products to be competitive technically, they must incorporate appropriate new technologies and be refined using leading-edge modeling, simulation, and experimental methods. For products to be competitive commercially, they must be innovative, elegantly designed, and cost-effective within any number of constraints. This requires creative problem-solving techniques that engage both sides of the brain.
Many MechE students apply Design, Manufacturing, and Product Development skills and techniques on extracurricular design work for organizations and student activities such as Design That Matters, Formula SAE, Satellite Engineering Team, and the Solar Car and Hovercraft clubs. Some projects are intended as flagship products for new companies and are entered in the $50K competition.