Without a strong design process, the research and design phase will be unstructured and last considerably longer than necessary. Research and design can be an engaging and fruitful process for student project teams, but without appropriate guidelines and structure, design can quickly spiral out of control and threaten successful completion of the project. Below is a three-stage framework for structuring design that makes the R&D phase more efficient and results-oriented.

Common problems and pitfalls in design include:

• Excessively broad scope: Imagination and creativity are generally progressive and necessary forces in a student project team, but they can stand in the way of progress if left unbridled and unchecked. Most problems, even relatively simple ones, can be solved many different ways. Excessive attention to discovering new solutions can lead to no solution at all.
• Excessively limited scope: Conversely, it is very easy to arrive at conclusions and solutions too quickly without considering your options. This is especially true of teams that have been operating for a considerable length of time or who are engaged in problems with a long history of proven results. By depending too much on previous designs, teams can get locked into proven but perhaps not optimal solutions. Such design work is also generally not intellectually fulfilling or motivating.
• Difficulty in choosing from a variety of design alternatives: Although it is easy to suggest that "the best" design will be chosen in the end, determining what "the best" is and against what standards it should be measured can be difficult. Should alternative designs differ only slightly, such decisions are generally easy. Often, however, competing designs can differ appreciably in functional specifications, size, cost, weight, availability, manufacturability or deliverability, etc. Moreover, as highlighted on the systems integration page (coming soon), the choice of design can be and should be seen as greatly interdependent with other subsystems.

An appropriate design strategy helps by adding structure to an otherwise potentially chaotic process. There is no one true way to approach this issue, but it is helpful to think of research and design in three distinct phases: preliminary, secondary, and final. As a student project team moves through these phases, design activity becomes more specific, more formalized, and more integrated at a systems level. In general, these phases should be given reasonably equal priority and time.

Preliminary Phase of Design

Early design should be seen as a loosely structured examination of alternative concepts and ideas. Although it is necessarily constrained by team goals and objectives and external rules and regulations, it should not necessarily be limited to repeating what has been done in the past. That noted, neglecting previous history can lead to reinventing the wheel, so, this phase is also an opportune time to check design options against previous practice.

This is also a good time to think about potential system-level interactions among designs to ensure that proposed designs will be compatible with one another. Radical designs with potentially profound systems interaction issues should not be shelved but rather discussed with full disclosure of potential interactions so that other designers can react accordingly and strategies for dealing with these interactions can be fleshed out.

Common inspirations for preliminary design ideas include:

• Brainstorming alternatives
• Researching applicable rules and regulations
• Competitive intelligence and benchmarking
• Researching previous team practices and designs
• Leveraging applicable external research
• Outlining potential systems interactions
• Outlining potential external constraints (e.g., weight, cost, complexity)

The end deliverable of preliminary design should be a limited but still open-ended outline of alternative designs that can be shared among team members for comment, discussion, and debate.

Secondary/Intermediate Phase of Design

Moving from preliminary to secondary design, designers should consider the challenges and opportunities offered in proposed ideas and begin to focus on those options that show the most merit and promise overall.

This can be a difficult process, particularly if it means shelving interesting or radical ideas. Be careful that all ideas are given equal and fair treatment and that the process of reducing complexity amongst options is reasonable, open, and based on objective analysis. Ideas rejected due to motives that are perceived to be arbitrary, biased, or unreasonable can be very demotivating to student designers.

Considerations that can be used to reduce complexity include:

• Performance: Will a particular design produce what is expected of the part/system? Does it exceed this expectation? Is this excess justifiable or beneficial or simply excessive?
• Complexity: Is it simple to design and realize, or is it a considerable challenge? Can it be simplified without sacrificing performance or sophistication? Will the complexity of design affect its later realization?
• Resources: Does the team have the money and human resources to realize the idea? If not, can resources be found or acquired to realize it?
• Systems integration: Does a particular design greatly affect other designs in the whole system? Have these interactions been investigated? Have reasonable compromises been considered and outlined?

By the end of the intermediary phase, designers should be leading towards a final design solution based on weighing these and other competing factors. Alternative designs may still have weight but mostly as fallback solutions should continued investigation and discussion prove that the ideal solution is unfeasible.

Final Phase of Design

By the end of this phase, designs should be locked down in preparation for their realization or manufacture. This provides a formal conclusion to design activities and allows the team to shift from design and research to creating a working prototype. Creating and testing the prototype will likely yield new challenges to the design, but these are best dealt with in the context of the development and testing phases.

By the end of the design phase, designs should be:

• Formalized: All drawings, architectures, specifications, etc. should be locked down and be satisfactory to meeting performance requirements.
• Parsimonious: The final design should be as simple as possible without sacrificing functionality.
• Realizable: The design should be able to be developed and created without overly taxing human or financial resources. Any outside support required should have been identified. Realizing the design should be able to begin immediately.
• Integrated: Any systems integration issues should be formalized and accounted for in development and testing plans in future phases.

Doing this perfectly is a tall order for experienced professional work groups, and it is even more challenging for student project teams. Many "final" designs will be revisited based on feedback from development and testing as a result.