Engineering Design

The text is intended to be used in either a junior or senior engineering design course with an integrated hands-on design project. The whole text is used in the senior capstone design course that includes a complete design project starting from selecting a market to creating a working prototype.What is design? If you search the literature for an answer to that question you will find about as many definitions as there are designs. Perhaps the reason is that the process of design is such a common human experience. Webster's dictionary says that to design is to fashion after a plan but that leaves out the essential fact that to design is to create something that has never been. Certainly an engineering designer practices design by that definition but so does an artist a sculptor a composer a playwright or any another creative member of our society.Thus although engineers are not the only people who design things it is true that the professional practice of engineering is largely concerned with design; it is often said that design is the essence of engineering.