CDIO
The Engineering Design Process is a cycle of brainstorming, designing, building, and testing. In MIT's AeroAstro Department, the design process is usually implemented in the form of CDIO: Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate.
Conceive:
On Rocket Team, we start by brainstorming ideas for a project that fits within the mission of our team and any competition in which we are competing. Then, we select an idea and begin designing our rocket and payload.
Design:
After selecting an idea, we begin to design our rocket and payload, making sure to follow any competition and team constraints. As we design, we conduct testing in parallel to ensure that our Implementation will be effective.
Implement:
To implement our design, we construct hardware. This is actually building the rocket. While we construct, we continue testing as needed to validate and verify our systems, and catch any last minute bugs.
Operate:
We fly! This phase actually occurs throughout the process, in parallel to design and implement. Operation can mean a test flight on a smaller scale rocket, a full scale test flight, and/or the actual final launch for competition.
Design Reviews
Another large part of the design process are design reviews. For a design review, the team pulls together information of varying detail about our design and mission, and presents it to an audience. The audience, level of detail, and subject matter depend on the type of design review. In industry, you will see many design reviews, including but not limited to, Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Critical Design Review (CDR), and Flight Readiness Reviews (FRR). On rocket team, we usually focus on PDR and CDR.
2018 Design Review Template
For the 2018-2019 school year, we decided to break up the rocket into smaller sections and conduct design reviews for those sections instead of just the rocket as a whole. This is the template for the presentation: Design Review Outline.pptx