Table 1: Concept Screening Spreadsheet
| Success Criteria | Reference | The Bomber | Rocket | The Rock | The Flame |
| Safety | 0 | – | – | + | 0 |
| Aerodynamic | 0 | + | + | – | + |
| Light-Weight | 0 | – | + | + | + |
| Aesthetics’ | 0 | 0 | 0 | – | + |
| Sum +’s | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Sum 0’s | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Sum -‘s | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Net Score | 0 | -1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Continue? | Combine | No | Revise? | No | Yes |
The concept screening spreadsheet above was used to determine the the best AEV, in a quick method, based on each AEV’s safety, aerodynamics’, how light it is, and its’ aesthetics’. For each category the AEV can be ranked from – to + with 0 being in between with – being the worst and + being the best. In order to calculate the net score you add up the -’s, equaling -1 for each, and the +’s, equaling +1 for each, a 0 accounts for no points in the net score. This concept screening spreadsheet shows that “The Flame” had the highest net score making it an obvious choice to continue on working with in the AEV project. While the next best net score was the “Rocket” since the rocket has some areas of improvement in the safety key area, the team decided to revise the original model and continue working with it as well. It is shown that “The Bomber” and “The Rock” lacked positive net scores due to their lack of focus in the key areas of design, meaning that their design want be carried on.
| The Bomber | The Rocket | The Rock | The Flame | ||||||
| Success Criteria | Weight | Rating | Weight Score | Rating | Weight Score | Rating | Weight Score | Rating | Weight Score |
| Safety | 30% | 1 | 0.3 | 1 | 0.3 | 3 | 0.9 | 2 | 0.6 |
| Aerodynamic | 25% | 3 | 0.75 | 3 | 0.75 | 1 | 0.25 | 3 | 0.75 |
| Light-weight | 25% | 1 | 0.25 | 3 | 0.75 | 3 | 0.75 | 3 | 0.75 |
| Aesthetics’ | 20% | 2 | 0.4 | 2 | 0.4 | 1 | 0.2 | 3 | 0.6 |
| Total Score | 1.7 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 2.7 | |||||
| Continue | No | Revise? | No | Yes |
The concept scoring spreadsheet allowed for the engineers to see a more in depth look at which design was best, by using weighted key areas, thus giving better qualitative data on each of the designs and how much each design lacked in each area. Again the designs were tested on the four key areas, the AEV’s safety, aerodynamics’, how light it is, and its’ aesthetics’, but in this case each area had a different weight, the higher the weight, the more the effect on the total score. Instead of using -’s, +’s, and 0’s, this uses rating which is then multiplied by the weight to give the weighted score. The weighted score for each value was added up to give the total score of the AEV. The engineers found from this scoring system that “The Flame” was an obvious choice for the future of the project, while they also decided that the “Rocket” needed some revising in the key area of safety then it would be carried forward. “The Bomber” lacked focussed design in the safety and lightweightedness key areas, while “The Rock” lacked focus in aerodynamics and aesthetics. These two designs were decided to not be carried forward in the future of the project.