Concept Design Screening And Scoring

 Concept Design Screening and Scoring

In the Concept Design screening and scoring lab, the teams 4 concept designs are tested and scored by a multitude of scoring criteria. This is done to narrow down the designs to find the one that is the best all round design and find its weakness.

Success Criteria

Stability:

Stability describes how stable the AEV cart is on the track. The AEV’s stability is determined by its weight distribution and center of gravity. A cart with good stability will ride easily on the track and as a result will experience less friction on the wheels and increase its efficiency.

Size:

Size describes the overall dimensions of the AEV. The larger the AEV is, the more material will be needed to make the AEV. This effects the weight and the cost of the final design. The dimensions also include the front face surface area and drag coefficient which effects the drag force on the cart. As the drag force increases, the overall efficiency of the cart decreases.

Cost:

The cost criteria is based off the price chart given to the team at the beginning of the project. The design must stay within the budget and be as cheap as possible in order to compensate for potential fines during the final test runs.

Weight:

The weight of the cart is determined by the amount of materials used and the density of the materials used. A AEV design which is smaller and simpler in design that is constructed out of lightweight materials, will there for have much less mass. The less mass the object has, the less energy is required to accelerate the vehicle from a stop and too a stop, making the cart more efficient.

Creativity:

Creativity describes how the design goes against the reference/sample AEV. A more creative design can mean that it incorporates new ways of tackling the project objective. But also with a more creative design comes a potentially more complex design which makes it difficult to work on or balance, as well as potentially increasing the weight and cost of the project.

Efficiency:

 

Efficiency describes the overall efficiency of the AEV. This is determined by several factors including the drag force, weight, propeller size, balance, propeller turbulence and a few other factors.

 

 

The tables below depict a decision matrix we used to rank the designs by how good they were overall. The first matrix is the screening matrix which we used during the lab to quickly record out results and thoughts on the different designs. The second Matrix is the scoring matrix we used to rank the designs based on what was most important to our design such as efficiency.