The Leaning Tower of Pisa, or simply the Tower of Pisa, attracts 5 million visitors every year. It certainly is a strange sight to behold as you walk through the city walls. Why does it lean?
All in Lessons Learned
Innovation, Sustainability, and Design for HVAC Systems
A lot of energy is needed to power the HVAC systems that keep people comfortable. Although not every building is actively cooled, buildings are responsible for 40% of all U.S. energy consumption and emissions, and space heating and cooling accounts for 53.1% of building energy usage. What can we do to make HVAC design more sustainable, and how can we be more sustainability conscious in our own design work?
Water, Water Bottles, and Why I Struggled Finding Water Bottle Stickers in Peru
Why was it so hard to find water bottle stickers in Peru? Why aren’t reusable water bottles popular in Peru, and why are they so popular in the United States? Read on to find answers to these pressing questions and change the way you think about drinking water.
Nuclear Power: Actuarial Versus Perceived Risks
Actuarial risks can be quantified or measured. Perceived risks are felt when the outcome of a risk is negative, catastrophic, or involuntary. Learn how this applies to public opinion of nuclear power and think about how this could apply to your design work.
Eight Tips for Acing Your Internship
I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I started my internship, and I was very nervous, so I wanted to share with you eight tips to help you succeed in your own internship.
Getting a Patent the Hard Way
Good design jobs are fun and smart designers never stay more than 3 years on a program to avoid getting stuck in sustainment, which is fixing minor drawing and manufacturing issues down in the factory. That is of course, unless you are in law school, in which case, low stress sustainment is the way to go.
Ski Design for the Olympics
When designing a ski for the Olympics, you should know the precise conditions in which that ski will be used and design for those use cases. If not, a sub-optimal ski design will keep you off the podium.
Design Lessons from the Olympics
The Olympics are an amazing event everyone should enjoy. But the Olympics are also incredibly hard to design for and offer a couple of lessons we can all transfer to our other projects.
What I Learned From My Biggest Product Development Mistake
I have made a lot of mistakes over my time in product development. These range from small things like missing a dimension on a drawing, to sending the wrong paint code to a factory so a batch of new bikes were about to be painted like confetti. My biggest mistake was made early on in the development of my first product.
A Simple Hack for Completing Long-Term Projects
To be clear, there are many factors that lead to project success; attitude, knowledge, process, opportunity, resources, and more. This article gives one simple process technique that anyone can do. I chose this one because it has been a significant part of my process for the last 20 years and has been the foundation of my best work.
Perpetual Motion and Design
I sat trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. Then he unveiled his invention. I already suspected what it was and now there was no doubt. I was looking at a perpetual motion machine.
Casino Design Royale
If you find yourself in Las Vegas, whether you plan to gamble or not, don’t miss out on the opportunity to observe some design choices made by casinos that influence behavior. However, don’t forget those same behaviors can be manipulated outside of casinos too…
Realizing that you're Good Enough
An engineering student shares his thoughts and experiences about mental health.
Keep the Big Picture in Mind
It’s easy to get caught up in the mire of minutiae and forget to keep the end in mind. Here are some design principles that can help teams avoid common problems.
Design Lessons from DIY
I was surprised at how valuable the DIY experience was as an engineer. Hopefully these lessons can save you the reader the trouble of learning them the hard way, but I encourage you to try some DIY and learn your own design lessons.
7 Timeless Principles We Can Learn from WD-40
In this article I look at WD-40 as a model of innovation. Why? Its popularity has stood the test of time, and its story is simple enough for us to extract out what WD-40 did right during its long history. Of course every product is different, but the principles observed from WD-40 are at least worth considering in any innovation setting.
Start Stop Continue
Progressing toward goals is difficult for all of us. That’s part of what makes goals a meaningful part of growth. If you find yourself struggling to reach your goals, as I do, consider the simple time-tested start-stop-continue method described in this article.
Haste Makes Waste, But Not Always
It can be extremely difficult to know how much time to spend on a particular design task. Do it too quickly and you might waste time and money. Do it too slowly and stakeholders will conclude that progress has stopped. This article gives eight things to practice as you learn to strike a good balance between spending too much versus too little time reaching development milestones.
Stepping Stones to Success – One Fire Alarm at a Time
I have worked at the BYU Electric Shop with the Fire Alarm Crew for about a year and a half. The Fire Alarm Crew is required to test and maintain fire alarm equipment throughout all of BYU campus. Entering the job, I felt like I had no knowledge about Fire Alarms, but I’ve learned a lot since then, and not just about Fire Alarms.
A Lesson from Toothbrushes
Ever think about design while brushing your teeth? There is a lesson or two, during the minute or two, we use a tool in our mouth daily.