Professor-driven, student-driven, and client-driven design projects

This paper suggests some of the advantages that students may gain from their design project experience. It also suggests the likely special advantages of professor-driven, student-driven, and client-driven projects. A design project in which the specifications are chosen by the professor is valuable in allowing students to apply what they have learned in a course. Such projects are also likely to be adequately challenging to the students. A design project in which the project and its specifications are chosen by the student is valuable in permitting the student to explore his or her interests. It has a good chance of being within the student´s capabilities, and is likely to raise the student´s self confidence, and be enjoyed by the student. A design project in which the specifications are determined mainly by a client´s needs will likely draw on more than what is taught in any one class. It will impose constraints and pressures preparing a student for a job involving design, including time pressures, cost containment pressures, and pressures of meeting important specifications. It will tend to encourage students to brainstorm for ideas and to consider alternative designs. It will tend to encourage adequate testing of the product. It may involve some opportunity for negotiation over the specifications. It will help the student acquire the habit of maintaining a customer focus. The paper concludes that there is no optimum type of design project for all purposes. It suggests that such a mix is likely to be challenging, of interest to the student, and likely to involve realistic design pressures.