The harp is a perfect example of the balance between design function and form. In this article, learn about certain design choices that make this instrument so beautiful to play, beautiful to see, and beautiful to design.
Design for Manufacturing Series: Additive Manufacturing
This article examines the transformative impact of 3D printing across various industries, from aerospace to construction and even culinary arts. It offers practical design tips for optimizing your prints, such as adjusting support structures, infill percentages, and finishing techniques to enhance both functionality and aesthetics. Learn how to leverage these insights to elevate your projects and harness the full potential of this versatile technology.
Product Development Lessons from the NES Controller
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Controller is an icon of the 1980’s and a symbol of the video gaming industry. This article describes the history of Nintendo as it relates to the NES and derives general product development lessons from the design of the NES Controller.
Is Documentation Valuable to the Design Process?
I visited 21 design firms and asked their designers and engineers what they thought about documentation. This is what I learned.
Crafting iconic products: The Power of a Branded approach in Product Design
In product design, UX gets a lot of attention—and for good reason. Making products that are intuitive, efficient, and user-friendly is crucial. But there’s one more thing that can contribute significantly to designing exceptional products and ignoring it means missing out on creating products that are truly iconic. Let’s talk branding.
Student Club Design: Lessons In Leadership
For student engineers, the process of gaining real-world experience through internships or part-time employment can be onerous and disheartening. By sharing my experiences in four student clubs, I hope to demonstrate the benefits of club involvement and communicate valuable lessons in team building, engineering skills development, and leadership.
The Modern-Day Ski Glove: A Surprising Opportunity for Innovation
Read the winning article for the BDR 2024 essay writing contest!
Decomposition in Design
I immediately realized that decomposition could be translated into other aspects of life. It became an essential part of how I view and approach any problem.
Minimalism in Design– Understanding Your Scope
The relationship between scope and minimalism doesn’t hold true in every case, but if you observe brands, you will definitely notice a pattern: the minimalism in their logos and their products frequently corresponds to their scope.
Optimization From Nature - Genetic Algorithms - A Brief Introduction
In this second part on optimization, the basics of the genetic algorithm are explored and explained, with an introduction to selection, cross-over, and mutation.
This Concept Changed the Way I Think About Ideation
This article presents an idea that has high influenced my way of thinking about design. The article is centered on ideation and focuses primarily on how to do it well. It introduces the concept of design space, design exploration, and the trade off curve.
Why Study the Design Process?
Why would you undertake a deep study of engineering design, or the design process, when you could go about design on your own and learn from your own experience? There is value to be gained from studying design, and I want to add my own take on why studying design is an important complement to hands-on experience.
Laughing through the Pain of Engineering
We should all find an excuse to laugh now and then. The BYU Design Review is not pranking you today, but we did think it timely to take a break from our normal content and bring some smiles to our readers’ faces.
I see optimization all around. But while spending time in nature, I find its expression most beautiful and abundant. Let’s go on a hike together and talk about optimization.
Good Design: Wilson Airless Gen1 Basketball
The basketball has had a uniform design for almost 100 years. What happens when a major sporting goods company decides that it is finally time for a change? The R&D team at Wilson put their minds together and came up with a pretty ingenious design.
Five Design Principles from Pi
On this 14th of March, we hope you have a happy Pi Day! Celebrate the holiday this year by applying one of these principles to a project you are working on.
Engineering with an Impact
Making a lasting change is my biggest goal in life, and I hope to share in this article the things that I have learned about how to be an engineer with impact. In voicing what has helped me to be more impactful in my undergraduate career up to this point, I hope you can gain more insight into what you can do from day to day to do the same.
Becoming a Slow Student
Even though the world is moving fast and perhaps even accelerating, it doesn’t mean we can’t be slow in certain ways. Becoming a slow student may be exactly what we need to do to stay at our peak performance in this fast paced world we live in.
What I learned when I let AI render my hand sketches (2024)
I let AI render my hand sketches, and in the end I am simultaneously amazed and sorely frustrated. Generative AI has its place, and preparing this article helped me learn when and were to expect value out of this powerful tool. In this article, I share various examples (good and bad), describe the software I used, list 4 ways this kind of AI is powerful, and give several tips on trying to use it in your own work.
Design for Manufacturing Series: Subtractive Machining
In an article published a few weeks ago, I gave a brief overview of a variety of manufacturing processes. Now, I will further discuss the first set of processes – subtractive machining.