SBIR Phase I: Ecosystem for Learning and Team Design

该SBIR第一阶段项目旨在开发一种创新的软件原型，该原型使用电子设计（e-design）笔记本中的页面，从设计过程的所有五个阶段（需求建模，功能建模，概念设计，实施设计和详细设计）自动评估设计活动。电子设计笔记本电脑是使用平板电脑或可转换笔记本电脑生成的，设计师在设计项目开始时收到或带来这些笔记本电脑，以完成所有设计工作。该软件将影响工程设计的教学方式，从而有助于培养强大的工程队伍，通过允许教师，导师或导师以较少主观性及持续性的方式评估学生或设计工程师的表现。在工业中，该工具可用于确保有效遵守内部设计流程（最大限度地减少设计陷阱的机会），并教授有效的设计技术，从而提高生产力，从而有助于提高竞争力，提高质量和缩短上市时间。该公司预计在六年内将年收入增长到至少1100万美元，通过提供独立的设计生态系统或将其评估引擎电子设计过程授权给电子实验室笔记本供应商，并在此过程中创造至少50个就业机会。该项目旨在改善设计过程的教学，学习和实践，通过指导性的实时警报，自动化评估与给定设计过程相关的设计活动的质量这一看似不可能的任务。该项目提出了唯一的学习工具，能够评估设计过程的所有五个阶段的设计活动。研究问题是“软件应用程序可以用来评估设计过程的结果吗？“为了回答这个问题，我们制定了三个技术目标。这些是（1）信息收集活动的评估;（2）设计过程活动的评估;以及（3）从电子设计笔记本的内容中提取的软件对象的工程。生态系统的核心是设计师能够将他们的文档上传到云环境，与他们的队友共享选定的设计，并与他们的讲师，导师或主管通信，但要遵守可配置的限制。该生态系统还提供了与计算机辅助设计（CAD）或数据产品管理的既定工具进行交互的方法。电子设计笔记本可以讲述一个贯穿设计过程各个阶段的故事，捕捉不同复杂程度的图纸，甚至可以扩展到支持复杂的CAD文件。

This SBIR Phase I project seeks to develop an innovative software prototype that uses pages out of electronic design (e-design) notebooks to automatically assess design activities from all the five stages of the design process (requirements modeling, functional modeling, concept design, embodiment design, and detailed design). The e-design notebooks are generated using tablets, or convertible laptops, which the designers receive, or bring, at the beginning of a design project, to do all of their design work on. This software will impact the way engineering design is taught, and thus contribute to the training of strong engineering workforce, by allowing instructors, mentors or supervisors to assess performance of students or design engineers with less subjectivity and on a continual basis. In industry, the tool can be used to ensure efficient compliance with internal design processes (minimize the chance of design pitfalls), and teach effective design techniques, leading to productivity enhancements that contribute to increased competiveness, higher quality, and shorter time-to-market. The company expects to grow the annual revenues to at least $11,000,000 in six years, by offering the design ecosystem stand-alone or by licensing its assessment engine, the e-design process, to vendors of electronic lab notebooks, and in the process create at least 50 jobs.The project aim is to improve teaching, learning and practice of design processes, by automating the seemingly impossible task of assessing the quality of the design activities relative to a given design process through guiding, real-time alerts. The project presents the only learning tool capable of assessing design activities from all the five stages of the design process. The research question is "Can a software application be used to assess the outcomes of a design process?" To answer this question, three technical objectives have been formulated. These are (1) Assessment of the information gathering activities; (2) Assessment of the design process activities; and (3) Engineering of the software objects extracted from the content of e-design notebooks. Central to the ecosystem is the ability of designers to upload their documents to a cloud environment, share selected designs with their teammates, and correspond with their instructor, mentor or supervisor, subject to configurable restrictions. The ecosystem also provides means for interfacing with established tools for computer aided design (CAD) or data product management. The e-design notebooks can tell a story that extends through the stages of the design process, capturing drawings with different degree of sophistication, and can even be extended to support complex CAD files.