Evaluation

The Evaluation:

Writing your evaluation report

Your evaluation report is a collection of the thoughts, reflections and judgements you have made during both the designing and making stages of your project In particular, consider how these choices and changes to your work have improved the final outcome and what you have learnt from this experience which will make you a better designer in the future.

You might consider splitting your report into two sections to reflect the two different stages of the process, ie:

1 Evaluating throughout the process of designing and making. This includes evaluating the appropriateness of your starting point, your initial research, design ideas, development, plan of making and the actual making of your product.

2 Testing and evaluating the performance of your final product. For this to be thorough, your project needs to be completed and capable of being tested and evaluated by the client, in the environment for which it was designed.

The process of designing and making

This is not a description or diary of what you did, or how you did It. This part of your report should focus upon those aspects of your designing and making where you had to make choices about your project or reconsider your proposed intentions. If you pull together the comments you have made in response to the evaluation points of this handbook, you will find that you can write a couple of sentences or a paragraph on each of the parts of your project. Use sketches or photographs to support your views and opinions.

Consider the following questions:

Designing

• Explain your reasons for selecting your starting point. If you were to tackle this project again, would you still think it was a suitable choice? If not, what would you do next time around?

• Discuss the most successful and least successful parts of your research. Were there any significant gaps in your research that you discovered as the project developed?

• Was your design specification as detailed as it should have been? What might you have added?

• Did your initial ideas meet your design specification?

• Which ideas did you choose to develop and why?

• What were the views of your client about your initial and developed ideas?

• What were the most important/successful features of your final design?

• What were the least successful features?

• Did your final design fully meet your design specification?

• Did you leave anything out of your design specification?

Making

• Why did you choose the particular materials, ingredients or components for your final product?

• Would you reconsider the materials and processes you used due to problems you encountered whilst making?

• During the making of the project, what parts were you pleased with and why?

• What aspects of your making could be improved and how?

• What new skills did you learn? Did your lack of experience in the application of these skills limit the quality of your work?

• How did you manage the time available for this project? Could you manage your time more efficiently in future projects?

• If you were to repeat the designing and making of this project, what would you do differently second time around? This part is essential – no evaluation is complete without suggesting some improvement to what you have done.

Evaluating and testing the final product

Here are a set of questions you might ask about your work when you are evaluating and testing the final product.

Write a sentence or paragraph about each of these questions to produce your final report- Use sketches or photographs to support your statements.

Consider the following questions:

• Look critically at your final product- What do you believe to be its strengths and weaknesses? • Does it work as you had intended? If not, why not? To what extent does it meet your proposed intention?

• Is it easy to use?

• Have problems arisen due to constraints around materials or your limited skills and expertise?

• Does the visual appeal of the product match the intended vision of your final design? If not, why not?

• Test out your product in the most appropriate way Gather the opinions of your client(s).

• Does your product meet the needs of your client(s)?

• Is your product cost-effective?

• Are there any environmental concerns?

• How could your product be improved? You could include sketches of your proposed improvements.

Final note about your evaluation report When writing evaluation reports, remember that you are reflecting upon what you have learnt about designing and making as a result of the project.

Your teacher or the examiner does not want to hear “... everything went well” as we all know, this is not what happens in the real world. Your teacher and the examiners are looking for your ability to analyse the project. You need to draw out, in a thoughtful and critical way, those aspects of your work that informed your thinking and prompted changes in direction. It is this flexibility and confidence to make sensible changes in direction as your work evolves which will signal that you are a good designer and also impress the people who mark your work.

IF YOU FOLLOW THIS HANDBOOK and IF you produce good quality well finished and complete work you have every chance of achieving the highest grades.

If you choose not to do so you will not achieve the grades you so easily could.

The rest is up to you.

Testing your product

Testing your product.

The first testing should be to make sure your product meets the requirements of the specification.

Take each specification point in turn and list them showing what you did to test this point and how well your product meets it.

You might test some parts of your product for durability.

You might ask for the opinions of others

You might be able to approach an expert who can give you an evaluation of your product and design. (this expert may be a retailer or a designer you know)

All testing should be planned and the results recorded.

The best way to do this is in a table.

Example:

Function	Test	Pass/Fail	Comments
Stability	The candlestick should recover if tilted to 20 degrees
	The candle stick should hold a 50 mm diameter candle without falling over.
Good quality finish	Here should be no scratches on the acrylic visible to the eye.

Etc.

Plan for making and Quality control and Assurance

Plan for manufacturing.

This is a list of step by step things you will have to do to make the project. You can use the following general headings but will need to put the detail necessary for YOUR project under them.

As an example lets look at Marking out:

You need to do this plan as if it were for another person so they need to know:

The Part name - Base of lamp

The Material - Acrylic

The Size - 600x200x3mm

The drawing to refer to - Dwg 1A

Any special tools or equipment needed.

Do this for each part you want to make.

Then do the same for cutting out (we all know we cut out on the waste side of the line don't we?) so after cutting out we need to finish the part to the correct size.

QA and QC - You need to show what Quality assurance and or Quality Control you intend to apply to your work. QC is about measuring things to see if they are right - If they are wrong then you have to throw the part away and do it again - this is a waste of time and materials. QA is about developing a system to prevent you making mistakes so what you make will be right because of the tools or system you use.

Typically in school you will have difficulty in measuring accurately, cutting out neatly and accurately or finishing to size correctly - It is possible to make tools to help you do these jobs. A Template is a pre made shape that you draw round to mark out your work. imagine that you are making 100's of you project rather than just one. You need to make sure they are all marked out the same. A template makes this quick and relatively foolproof.

A jig is a tool used to aide cutting out or assembly of the parts, If you have used a saw guide to cut 45 degree angles for the corners of a frame then you have been using a Jig.

Another great help in QA is to use CAD and CAM - (Computer aided Design and Computer Aided manufacturing) This may be a cutter controlled by a computer (e.g. a router) or a similiar machine that will take the CAD drawing you have done and will use the drawing to guide the cutting out of some material.

Because the machine is accurate and provided the original drawing is correct it will cut out the same thing over and over again the quality of the parts you cut out is guaranteed.

Marking out	QC Check measurements	QA Use of templates – Use of CAD
Cutting out	QC Cut on waste side of the line and check each part for size.	QA use of jigs - Use of CAM
Finishing to size	QC checking for fit and accuracy.	QA use of jigs to guide tools. Use of CAD/CAM
Assembly		QA Use of jigs to aid assembly
Test	QC testing finished product against specification.

Note that for each step you should detail the QA/QC checks you will do. (see below for meaning of QA/QC) Select one or the other QA or QC in general you would not so both.

Quality Control and Quality Assurance (QA - QC).

You should identify where you will use quality control and or quality assurance techniques in you work.

Quality control. – This requires that you check each part to make sure it will do what it is supposed to do, often a check of size or fit with another part.

Example. It is the right size, it performs the correct functions, e.g. a motor turns the right way. If the part fails then some remedial measures need to be taken to fix it. If this is impossible, say the part is too small then it will have to be remade.

QC is costly in time and materials.

Quality Assurance – This requires that you use some sort of plan to make sure that all of the parts of the project will be made correctly. This may mean making a jig or template, once this has been proven to be correct it will allow the construction or assembly of the same part many times and each time it will be correct because the jig or template guides what you do.

Example. A jig to make sure you drill the holes in the correct place. The used of CAD – CAM, once the file has been produced then many more of that part can be made by the machine and they will all be the same.

This is much better because any costs are minimised by the reductions in errors during construction.

The development ends in:

a) The production of orthographic working drawings of each part of the product with all dimensions marked on them. These should show enough detail such that another person could make the project if required.

Use Orthographic drawings and if possible an exploded drawing to show where each part fits.

b) A materials list so that the correct materials can be ordered.

c) A plan for making showing a step–by-step plan to make your project, this should be detailed. Details of quality assurance and quality control should be included. Some idea of time should be included – be realistic. You can/will refer to the orthographic drawings of each part you have already put in your folder.

If and when you have to change your plans or your design you must note down these changes and record why you have had to make them. There are marks for doing this – in fact you lose marks if you don’t

Possibly because you:

q Underestimate the amount of time needed

q Find a different and better way to make some part of the product.

q Find that a process you planned to use isn’t available or isn’t working as well as you expected.

q You have to use different materials because of availability or because they are better for your purpose.

q You have changed the design because what you are trying to do isn’t working.

Industrial practice

Industrial Practices.

Industrial methods of production – SHOW HOW THESE WOULD BE APPLIED TO YOUR PROJECT – DO NOT JUST COPY THIS OUT:

One-off

q Also known as job production. This involves designing and making single products usually for a special order. This can also be known as a commission.

q For example, a fashion designer might produce a specially-ordered suit for an individual person.

q The process is usually labour- intensive and involves limited mechanisation. The products are usually very expensive.

Batch production

q Also known as small scale production or low volume production

q This is where small quantities of the same product are made. They are usually made to order and there may be some opportunity for the client to select options that meet their needs.

q Some mechanisation and jigs may be used to improve accuracy and to speed up production.

q Examples of batch production include boat building, specialist sports cars, a range of bread produced by a local baker, and designer fashions.

Mass production

q Also known as repetitive flow or volume production

q This involves producing large quantities of identical products. It may include mechanised or automated production lines. In many cases, special moulds, dyes and automated production lines may be used to speed up output.

q The production of large quantities of the same product reduces costs to the consumer Televisions, computers, high street fashions, tins of baked beans, cola drinks and birthday cards are just a few examples of this enormous range.

q You should also think about how each of the following might be relevant to your product in an industrial context, and how each might be undertaken:

o Research and development that might include market research and the testing of prototypes.

o Meeting deadlines set by your clients.

o Different approaches to making which could include sub-contracting or the use of jigs/templates to aid marking out and promote accurate assembly.

o Independent testing that might include market trials.

o The use of ICT to provide greater quality and accuracy in designing and making.

o Environmental issues — use of resources, waste disposal, pollution, recycling.

o Quality control and assurance.

o Health and safety issues including risk analysis.

Development

Development

1. This is the time to select from your initial ideas the best of them and bring these together into a single design that you will make. They might be the best because:

1. They best meet your requirements
2. Are most liked
3. Look the best
4. Provide a very good solution to the problem
5. ou will be able to make them to a good quality standard.

2. Good design is always a compromise, now you have to turn your ideas into a practical project.

3. Everything is made up of many smaller parts, you have to design EVERY one of those parts and show how to make them and how they fit together.

4. Take each part starting at the top or the bottom and work through the product part by part: E.G The base box to contain the battery and LED’s. Consists of a base and 4 sides and a top. They all need drawing. The batteries and LED’s are fitted in somehow design how. Generally when you buy things the parts inside don’t rattle about – neither should yours.

5. So you will need to decide exactly how the project will be constructed. This will mean considering each part of the project and how they fit together.

6. You will need to decide on sizes for each part. The Materials needed, how that part will be made.

Modelling

1. This is often the time to make some models to experiment with how things work or how big they need to be. Any modelling you do should be photographed and included in this section with note explaining what you learned from it.

2. The final design will be drawn as working drawings. Usually 3 orthographic views of the whole object and of each part so that the correct dimensions can be marked on them. This is a good place to use 2D design CAD.

3. Decide on the materials required.

4. Decide on the construction techniques you will use

5. Make a table showing all materials, what they are for and how much you will need. A costing can be done now as well.

Generation of Ideas

Ideas.

In this section your should aim to produce between 7 to 10 different ideas, (or more), that will all satisfy the requirements of the specification - a good way to progress this is to take each point in your specification and produce an idea that relates to that point - Eventually you will have a series of ideas that solve the requirements of your specification. in the development you can sort out the best of those ideas for the final product.

Fill each design page with ideas or details of the ideas. - White paper carries no marks - Use a variety of ways to get your ideas over, Isometric and Orthographic drawing, annotate all drawings to explain what they mean but do not have more words than drawings on the paper.

Try to produce ideas that are clearly workable. Try to show that they are 3D objects. Try to show how they work and what they do. Always show the thickness and depth of the ideas simple line drawings are probably not enough.

Use your research – it should be clear that you are looking at your research as a source of inspiration – MAKE THIS CLEAR.

Look around you all the time and try to find things that can inspire ideas. Existing products - Shop windows - Magazines - Nature - Patterns - TV programmes - all sorts of things if you are receptive.

The shape of a vacuum cleaner can become a futuristic car body. The design of a toy can be modified to make a kitchen timer. Etc.

Do not throw away marks by editing out ideas that you feel are not as good as others. Keep all of your work and select the best from it later.

All of your ideas should be evaluated in notes as you go along.

Keep your design pages neat – Start at the left and work towards the right so that the examiner can follow what you are doing.

Think about:

a) Does this design meet the requirements

b) Explain why you have rejected an idea

c) Show where you have used material from your research

d) Say what decisions you have made

e) Say how you could improve on an idea

f) Decide if the idea is appealing and say what you could do to improve this.

List alongside your designs the materials that might be used, are they available, do you know how to use them.

Your Specification

Specification.

This MUST be connected to your research and analysis. You must make this obvious – For every point in the specification you must have some reason/evidence in your research to back it up. Sometimes you can see things in your existing products pictures e.g. no sharp edges – No loose wires etc.

This is a statement of what you are going to make will have to do i.e. it’s functions. It included enough information to clearly identify the product you will make but try not to limit your design with too much detail e.g. sizes materials etc. It is if you like a list of requirements that your completed product will meet.

It might contain all or some of the following – Use bullet points:

a) What the product must do

b) Any safety issues it must meet

c) Special features for the environment it will be used in

d) How the product will be tested

e) How long the product has to last

f) How the product will be stored or displayed

g) Details of any packaging

h) Details of any instructions required

i) Properties of any materials that will be used

j) Details of what type of finish is required

k) Ergonomic requirements

l) International standards the product must meet – If you quote these you must find out what they are.

m) Visual requirements the product might have

n) Specific performance requirements

o) Cost limits

p) Specific size limits

q) Specific weight limitations

r) Specific material limitations

s) Maintenance requirements e.g. change battery

Select those items that can apply to your project.