Every year, about 40,000 industrial robots are made in the United States. These machines help engineers address the needs of the population, but these needs are always evolving. Since new machinery is required to keep up with those changes, engineers need to design machinery that’s flexible, reliable, and strong enough for the task at hand.
People with the skills to design these machines will always be able to find jobs in the US economy. To ensure the ongoing success of your design, consider following these 5 engineering tips.
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1. Define the Function
If you don’t know what your machine design should do, it’s impossible to design a device that does the job well.
Let’s say you make an automatic door lock for a client. If someone asks how their invention works and all you can say is, “It locks doors,” you haven’t defined its function well enough yet!
What does locking do? It keeps burglars out of your house when you forget to lock the doors on your own.
Now you know your machine must prevent burglars from entering without any effort on the owner’s part. This new knowledge allows you to create a machine that locks doors immediately after the owner leaves, rather than by a timer.
2. Look at Other Machines
When you’re looking for inspiration, look no further than the machine parts around you. The best way to come up with new ideas is by observing how other people have solved similar problems.
If you’re designing a flying car, look at cars that are already on the market and see if there is any commonality in their design. Consider how you can make your lubricant more innovative, for example. Or you can click for more ways of avoiding lubricants completely.
3. Break the Design Into Smaller Pieces
One of the key engineering principles you should remember when designing a machine is that it should be as simple as possible. If you’re trying to create a ground-breaking device, analyze the components, divide them into manageable pieces, and then integrate those parts to form a solution.
4. Draw Sketches
Sketches are useful when you’re designing machinery because they allow you to understand how all the parts fit together before building anything. This reduces costs by eliminating unnecessary parts during assembly.
5. Test Your Design
You should test your design as you go and after it’s finished. This will help you find potential problems in the early stages of development.
Testing with real people is also a great way to find out whether your design makes sense and works effectively. You can get feedback on usability and aesthetics from individuals who have no background in engineering or technical ability.
Follow These Engineering Tips
Designing a new machine is a laborious process. It requires you to think about the functions of the machine, break those functions down into smaller pieces, and put them together in a way that works. But if you follow these engineering tips, your design will be much more likely to succeed!
If you get stuck during manufacturing, look at our technology section for new ideas.
