The following project is to be completed and handed in no later than Thursday, 7 September 2000.  It is an individual assignment.

Quite frequently, we come across a product that has some feature that is annoying to us.  For example, cardboard or paper beverage boxes are terrific in many ways.  They are lighter than glass and more easily packable than aluminum cans.  However, it used to be a pain in the neck to open them.  When you poked the straw through the top, it was nearly impossible to avoid squirting  some of the contents upon you.  Manufacturers have come up with some creative solutions to this design flaw, but for quite some time people merely put up with it.

I want you to identify a product that you consider to have a design flaw.  The product can be anything you choose.   I suggest that you keep a notebook handy one day and log every little annoyance you encounter (not including your ENGR 162 instructor.)  You may be surprised at the number of things that are either a hassle or take an inappropriately long time to use.   Frequently, we put up with these things without being entirely cognizant of the nuisance they provide.  Also, sometimes we develop work-arounds that become second nature, and we tend to forget about the flaw that we have corrected.

After you have identified a faulty product, send me an email or talk to me and tell me what the product is.  If I give you the go-ahead, then you should write a concise one page description (about 500 to 750 words) describing the product you have chosen to write about and the fault you have found.   Assess the ramifications of the flaw and identify a worst case scenario of the "damage" this fault may cause.  Describe how you want the product to behave and estimate how feasible a correction of the flaw would be.  I am not asking you to come up with a solution to the problem; I am merely asking you to guess why the manufacturer didn't fixed the fault before it arrived on the market.  Can it be fixed?

Hand in your paper anytime before the due date.  I will base your grade on how well the problem is described in your paper.

I suggest you start thinking about this early, because I am not going to allow two students to write about the same flaw.  That's why you need to talk to me before you start writing your paper.

Have fun.