Ia Design Project practice questions.

A student opens a design project with the sentence: 'Desk lamps are boring, so I will design a better one.' Which weakness must be corrected before the project can proceed?

• No end user or design context has been identified
• The lamp has not yet been drawn in isometric projection
• No manufacturing process has been selected for the shade
• The material of the base has not been decided

Answer: No end user or design context has been identified

A design need must be evidenced by a stated user in a stated context; a personal opinion about existing products is an assertion, not a need. Materials, processes and drawings all come later and none of them can be justified until the user and context are fixed.

A school workshop holds a laser cutter, a pillar drill and hand tools, the project budget is 40 euro and 12 hours of making time are available. Which project proposal is feasible within these constraints?

• An injection-moulded phone case in ABS
• A flat-packed plywood desk tidy cut on the laser
• A sand-cast aluminium bicycle crank
• A carbon-fibre laminated skateboard deck, vacuum bagged

Answer: A flat-packed plywood desk tidy cut on the laser

Feasibility in a design project is judged against the processes, budget and time actually available, not against what industry would use. Injection moulding, sand casting and vacuum bagging each need tooling or equipment the workshop does not have.

A specification point states that a garden kneeler must be carried 200 m by a user aged over 70 without stopping to rest. Which test produces valid evidence for this point?

• Weigh the kneeler and compare the figure with a competitor product
• Calculate the bending load carried by the handle from the mass
• Have three target users carry it along a measured 200 m route and record any stops
• Show target users photographs of the kneeler and ask whether it looks light enough to carry

Answer: Have three target users carry it along a measured 200 m route and record any stops

A specification point is tested by reproducing the condition it names, so a carrying distance is tested by carrying, with the user group stated in the point. Weighing and calculating measure different quantities, and asking about appearance collects opinion rather than performance.

A reader can see a finished storage box in a photograph but cannot tell how it was made. Which addition to the portfolio corrects this?

• A rendered computer-aided design image of the finished box
• A list of the materials from which the box was built
• A dated photographic record of each making stage, annotated with the process
• A set of larger photographs of the finished box taken from three separate angles

Answer: A dated photographic record of each making stage, annotated with the process

Evidence of manufacture has to show the process as it happened, which only a staged, dated and annotated record does. More or better images of the finished object still document the outcome rather than the making.

A portfolio uses a bought hinge, a photograph taken from a competitor's website and a published table of anthropometric data. Which action meets the academic honesty requirement?

• Redrawing the competitor photograph by hand so that it becomes original work
• Deleting the anthropometric table because the student did not collect the data
• Citing both sources and recording that the hinge was a bought-in part
• Listing the hinge in the parts list, which acknowledges all three items

Answer: Citing both sources and recording that the hinge was a bought-in part

Sourced images and data are credited where they are used, and bought-in components are identified as such so the student's own making stays visible. Redrawing a source does not remove the obligation to credit it, and deleting valid secondary data weakens the research instead of correcting the fault.

A design project is planned on a bar chart of tasks against weeks. Which pair of tasks may be scheduled to run at the same time without breaking a dependency?

• Testing the prototype and manufacturing the prototype
• Evaluating the finished prototype against the specification and generating first concepts
• Selecting the final concept and carrying out the user research
• Building the test rig and manufacturing the prototype

Answer: Building the test rig and manufacturing the prototype

Two tasks can overlap only when neither consumes the output of the other, and a test rig can be built from the specification while the product is still being made. Testing needs a finished prototype, evaluating the finished prototype needs it tested, and selecting a concept needs the user research that justifies the choice.