Re: Designing an espresso maker with integrated PID controller

None. My professor said that in real engineering, people specialize in their respective fields. Thus, the primary design engineer has a designer form the external appearance of the product. The mechanical engineer is responsible for the *function* of the unit.

Our final design looked kinda nice though.

I'm glad it worked out well. There are few projects that are challenging enough for students to take on while being simple enough to accomplish with their combination skillset, resources, and limited time. It sounds like an espresso machine is one of them.

What your prof said is the old style project plan, where an industrial designer comes in at the end of the project. While this is still used for some industrial products like air compressors and manufacturing equipment, it is no longer used for consumer products or automobiles. Now the industrial designer comes in at the very beginning along with marketing. The designer will determine the shape, features, basic function, and work out the human factor issues. Then the engineering team is brought in beginning with the design engineer who then complete the project engineering the function and manufacturing aspects.

Dan

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