A Framework for Prototyping (Design Course 5.2)

We've defined prototype as an approximation of an artifact on one or more dimensions of interest. And that last bit of that phrase, one or more dimensions of interest, suggests that a prototype need not necessarily approximate the artifact on all its dimensions. And in fact, it's useful to think about two extremes. At one

extreme, prototypes can be very focused on one or a few dimensions of interest. At the other extreme, they can be comprehensive and that is essentially capture most or all of the aspects or dimensions of the artifact. Let me give you an example. I was designing a a a battery pack for an electric bicycle and I was very

interested in using these cells, these lithium cells that were made that are made by A123. And I was also interested in the idea of using a bicycle water bottle as the storage container uh for the battery pack. That would give us the ability to to use the water bottle cage on a bicycle to hold the battery pack. The

question I wanted to answer was how many of these A123 cells would fit in a standard water bottle? Now, of course, you could do that mathematically, and you could maybe even use a three-dimensional computer model, but instead, I chose to simply make some models of battery cells out of a wooden dowel that I bought at the hardware

store that are very close in dimension to the A123 cells. And that let me play with the configuration and packing of those cells in a very real way without having the precarious task of working with live lithium batteries that contain a lot of energy. And in in fact I was able to figure out

how to pack the cells that in fact five will fit in a row but not six. in a standard water bottle pack and to do that very efficiently and and quickly. Um, this however is not a comprehensive prototype. Of course, I can't power my electric bicycle with this battery pack. It's focused in the