The concept screening and scoring matrices were used to rate each of the member’s designs in order to systematically choose two designs to move forward within their AEV development. The matrices use multiple criteria to rate the designs and see the pros and cons of each. The advantage of using the concept screening and scoring matrices is that they provide a quick and effective method to compare the designs instead of building each design and running multiple tests to compare them. The first step for using the matrices is to select multiple criteria for comparison. The criteria chosen and explanations are provided below.
Criteria
- Weight – The overall weight of the AEV and all of its components. The lighter it is, the more efficient it will be.
- Stability – How structurally stable the AEV is and how it rests on the track (is the weight balanced or will it lean to one side).
- Safety – How safe the structure of the AEV is (are all the components properly spaced and accounted for, will the wires get caught in the propellers).
- Ease of Manufacturing – How complicated it will be to construct the AEV (are there a lot of parts that will take a while to put together).
Concept Screening Matrix
The table above shows the concept screening matrix that Team B used to compare their designs. For this matrix, each of the designs were compared to the reference design and given a “+” if they were better than the reference, a “0” if they were equal, and a “-” if they were worse. The chart above shows that Zach, Kyle, and Chris’ designs were all candidates for the final design.
Concept Scoring Matrix
The table above shows the concept scoring matrix that Team B used to compare their designs. This matrix serves as a much more detailed analysis of each design. Each criteria was given a weight which would allow some criteria to be more important than the others. Then each design was rated from 0 to 5 and multiplied by the weight to give the weighted score. The sum of the weighted scores was then used to compare each design. The chart shows that both Chris and Kyle’s designs would be considered for the final design.