A Manufacturing Technology activity including students at BHS, SLHS, and Pierce College; designed to include the process of design, material selection, and manufacturing from conception to completed product. Completed product to be returned to Pierce College for product evaluation and any non-destructive analysis.

High School students would be given a product need, form teams and develop an initial design based on the given design criteria. Team will be formed after a discussion of the importance of teaming and team-building activities with rolls established and identified. Each team will be responsible for producing a poster board presentation of their design idea, with drawing and sketches, and oral presentation including a prototype of their design. The presentation process will be used to evaluate and select two or three of the best designs most likely to be marketed.

The high school teams will go to Pierce College and present their design idea to the manufacturing class for final consideration and selection. The Pierce College students may select one design from each high school or a blending of both designs into one final product design for each high school.

The second role of the CC will be to select material design and the manufacturing process, draw up the final plans and provide specifications and send back to each high school for production. During this process any questions will be directed to the high school teams via e-mail, phone, or direct visitation.

Blueprints and specifications received from the CC will be organized into manufacturing flow chart for production. Production steps will be formed, team involvement will be setup, materials will be gathered and selected for the manufacturing to begin. Students will manufacture the product based on the plans and specifications provided. Students will also be working on packaging, instructions for use in English and a second language, and marketing strategies, (costs, advertising, etc.).

Finished product including packaging and marketing schemes will be sent to a local industry for final evaluation.

Students from both high schools and the CC will meet with industry for final analysis and awarding of Design excellence reward.

In material Science and Manufacturing testing is an important part of product development and material selection. Material selection is based on properties, one of which is the ability to conduct electric current. A useful instrument to have would be a simple conductivity tester. One that would be small, can be held in your hand, have an LED with a nine volt power supply with fixed or changeable leads or a combination of both for testing.

Materials and tooling must be easily available to high school students from local stores.

Possible Materials:

LED blinking light or numbers, from Radio Shack, DC voltmeter, 9 volt battery with battery clip, 24 gauge wire, alligator clips, banana plugs, resistor, circuit board, some type of material for a case.

Word 97 doc file of this project:  spanaway.doc