Materials Selection in Mechanical Design (Knovel ebook) - describes a procedure for materials selection in mechanical design, allowing the most suitable materials for a given application to be identified from the full range of materials and section shapes available. See also: Handbook of Materials Selection

Creativity and Invention

IDEO: did a redesign of the Shopping Cart for Nightline. See BusinessWeek article on IDEO for more on the IDEO Way, and books in the library too.

List two questions you need to answer before you can build your project:

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List two local organizations or people you could interview or observe before you build your project:

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Creative Juices Flowing...

Collect, compare, conduct evaluations. Visualize, sketch the experience of the user, analyze the flow with sticky notes, observe users in action, shadow users, shoot for the moon, predict the future, empathize, role play, consider all scenarios (come up with at least 5), and analyze human social network involved.

Information Choices: What Sources To Use

Use different types of information to get broad coverage of your topic.

Review the 5 items below. What type of sources are the they - Newspapers, trade or popular magazines, books, scholarly/academic research journals? Who's the intended audience for each source?

Intelligent manufacturing and environmental sustainability. Robotics & Computer-Integrated Manufacturing December 2007, Volume 23, Issue 6, p704-711

Household robotics: autonomous devices for vacuuming and lawn mowing Control System Magazine, IEEE Volume 27, Issue 2, April 2007 Page(s):20 - 96

Fully Automatic System for Monitoring Blood Pressure from a Toilet-Seat Using the Volume-Oscillometric Method in Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2005. IEEE-EMBS 2005. 27th Annual International Conference 2005 Page(s):3939 - 3941.

Handbook for Assistive Technology.San Diego, Calif.: Singular Pub. Group, c1992.

Find Books and Technical Handbooks

Library Catalog for items @ WPI or WorldCat to search beyond our library. See also: Technical Handbooks

Search for a book in our library or WorldCat that may assist you with your project:
TITLE: ________________________________________________________
CALL NUMBER: __________________________________________________

NOT FINDING ANYTHING? Try a broader search! Try also: Amazon | Google Books

Evaluate...

Evaluating Web Resources Checklist (PDF)

According to a study at Stanford, nearly half of all web site evaluators (46.1%) used visual cues, to assess a site's credibility. Move beyond what a site looks like...

Authority
Scope
Currency
Accuracy

Find Articles

Within Engineering Village and other library database searches, look for FullTextFinder link for retrieval options.

Free tip: check out Google Scholar, a web search of scholarly and professional sources, but use Proxy if off campus to gain access to any subscription content that may appear in search results.

Engineering Village - CompendexWeb & INSPEC: Abstracts to engineering journals, reports, and conferences for professional engineers and scientists. Choose FullTextFinder to track down full text, if available.
PubMed: The U.S. National Library of Medicine database of articles and abstracts of biomedical journals for medical and health professionals.
Thomson PowerSearch: Articles on all topics. Content ranges from popular news to academic research journals. Choose Advanced Search to limit to scholarly research studies.
LEXIS®-NEXIS® Academic: Full text news, legal, medical, and business information. News coverage ranges from regional coverage (Worcester T & G) to national. Premier legal research service, used by lawyers. Also contains information on companies and industries.
ScienceDirect: Full text access to academic science journals published by Elsevier.

Search one of the above databases for an article on your product. What can this article tell you about designing a new product of this type? Scan the results and list 1-2 issues or concerns you may want to address.
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What journal or magazine is this article from? Is it available in full text? Or just an abstract? If only an abstract is found, find the full text, using the library's Journals, Magazines, & Newspapers search.

Only Finding a Citation? Getting the Full Text

Is the journal online or here in the library? Search our Journals, Magazines, & Newspapers list
Visit another library: Search WorldCat to find one
Request delivery from another library: Interlibrary Loan.

Filter and Follow Up...

Scan results: use subject headings/descriptors, keywords, phrases found to expand search
Scrutinize article titles, number of pages, and title of source
Browse promising abstract and conclusion sections of long studies
Bibliographies can clue you in on the value of the article as well
Find an interesting author? Search for more articles or for his/her web site
Notice an agency, association or expert mentioned in an article? Follow up!

Find Patents

How About These Apples: Patent Searching Basics for beginners to get a general understanding of the types of patents and how to search for them.

Three Sources for Free Patent Searching:

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) - Patent Search
Free Patents Online - try Advanced Search (benefits include: full images PDF files, scroll down past ads; search both registered patents and applications at once; clickable classification codes; but you must register first)
Google Patents

Search and review others patents to understand:

technical specifications/innovations
product designs
competitive differences/advantages
players (competitors; inventors)

Trouble viewing patent images? Download Alterniff viewer or type patent number into pat2pdf.org site to get a PDF version. Freepatentsonline allows you to view full text and images in PDF format, but has many advertisements and requires free registration.

Classification:

Try USPTO patent classifications to expand your patent search. For example:

Class 296: Work Holders

Using freepatents is nice because class codes are hyperlinked, within the USPTO site click on the almost invisible "P" on the far left next to the code description to browse similar

Search the USPTO patent database for a patent related to your design project:

Scan the results, review the drawings of a few by clicking the IMAGES link. Enter patent number into pat2pdf.org, or Freepatentsonline if you cannot view the images.
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More time? Find 2 companies and list their web site who have products similar to yours: ___________________________________________________________________
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Competing Products, Market Analysis, and Opportunity Assessment

Companies, Products, and Parts

Search by company or product name to learn more about how their product is selling; are there recalls, problems or issues? Start with LexisNexis Academic or EBSCOhost Business Source Premier for company information within articles and news stories

Manufacturers, Parts, Products, and Materials Catalogs

Many firms sells the parts and supplies you will need to build your product. Explore the following for parts, or visit local hardware stores:

Grainger.com: supplies and parts.
McMaster-Carr Supply Company: industrial supplier
ThomasNet
Catalog & Parts - more reference web sites

Market

Search by industry or product keywords. Be creative with synonyms and try product name(s) to learn more about how specific products are selling. Any recalls, problems or issues? What do current consumers think about the product? What preferences are desired? Any surveys or product reviews?

Experts: track down trade associations, scholars/researchers and industry professionals. Search the web: Trade association web sites & search tips

Market Size and Trends: obtain statistical data from government sources on fedstats.gov or Statisical Abstract of the United States. Also, track down trade associations or non-governmental sources on number of people or households that would need this product. Would this product be purchased by an individual or an organization? A web search on your product or target audience combined with terms such as sales, units sold, even the word statistics may lead you to data. Or a search in a company database might find other companies that could purchase similar products, Hoovers is a great place to search for companies.

Regulations and Standards

Standards: web or article database searches may lead you to some of the standards (they may be mentioned within articles). See our Finding Standards research guide for more on finding standards that apply to your product. Building something? Check Massachusetts Building Codes. Need to control traffic? Check Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
Government Sources: Does any legislation apply that could effect your market (ADA for instance)? For government documents see THOMAS for Legislative information or GPO Access: search federal information from agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Give Credit! Cite Your Sources

Try Refworks: a bibliographic database & citation management tool. Create a database of your references then output them into many formats, including MLA, ASME, and other styles. More...

Modern Language Association Style (MLA)
Mechanical Engineers: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) - reference style

Questions?

Stop by the reference desk or set up a research consultation.

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Last modified: Mar 12, 2008, 09:31 EDT