Passionate Axiomatic Deterministic Design: An Plea for the Future of Designology
Alexander H. Slocum
Alex & Brit d'Arbeloff Associate Professor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Mechanical Engineering
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 35-010
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: (617) 253-0012
Fax: (617) 253-7549
E-mail: slocum@mit.edu
Over the years, much has been written about the use of deterministic and systematic design methods and principles. From early characterization of the idea of determinism in design for precision machines (Donaldson, 1972) to development of an axiomatic design method (Suh, 19), to a detailed treatise on all the actual practical analysis and implementation steps to create precision machines (Slocum, 1992) attempts have been made to get designers to slow down and think about what they are doing. The fundamental issue, however, is that this goal is diametrically opposed to what motivates many brilliant designers. The best designers, therefore, are those that have a bio-nueral-net programmed for deterministic axiomatic thought while simultaneously achieving rapid-fire multi-techno happiness enhancement. Examples of such mega-designers include Westinghouse (air brakes for railroads, electric power), Edison (light bulb, electric consumer products), Tesla (AC power generation), Johnson (SR71 Blackbird, Lockheed's Skunkworks).
It is often said that if you give 100 monkeys 100 word processing stations and let them have 100 years, they will not create Shakespeare. How, therefore, can we expect 100 average designers with software to create what a single Edison can create? The answer might be passion. The best designers are not perhaps merely brilliant, they are passionate about what they do. The best designers dream wild thoughts, and these wild thoughts, which others often scoff at, often are optimized by physics to create major new products.
Taking a cue from the world of television, consider the optimal pair formed by Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock of Star Trek. Spock was the interface between the wild, creative shoot-form-the-hip Kirk whose instincts were unmatchable. Spock took the instincts and optimized them and catalyzed them, and made them into reality. The designer should be Kirk, and the design program should be Spock and his computers.
It would thus seem that the holy grail of designology is not a software program or analysis tool that a designer must learn to use in order to be reined in, tamed, and forced into a box of systematic conformity. Awesome designers will rebel at such evil satanic constraints and will flee to unhindered ground. Companies that impose such evil will be left with lots of OK designers who will not be able to compete with the most creative designers. Therefore, the holy grail of designology should be a software program that can catalyze the thought process of a designer, and harness an attribute that no neural net can dream of, a passionate lust to create a most awesome amazing orgasmic design. Given the dream, the vision, it can always be optimized with the design-o-matic optimizer.
The catch, however, is what are the functional requirements of the program that will allow it to have a robust, high-bandwidth designer interface? The problem may be as difficult as a natural language interface for a computer, and thus are the software functional requirements even achievable?
As a designer with a significant number of patents and high tech products, I can attest to the need to be free and unconstrained, yet tempered by physics and reality. As a designer, it would be a joy to have a program to be my Mr. Spock. The next step, therefore, is perhaps to link a hardware person (a me) with a software person with the same passion for design.
References
1. R. Donaldson, ìThe Deterministic Approach to Machining Accuracyî, SME Fabrication Technology Symposium, Golden, CO, Nov. 1972 (UCRL preprint 74243).
2. A. H. Slocum, Precision Machine Design, Prentice Hall, 1992
3. N. P. Suh , The Principles of Design, Oxford University Press, Inc., 1990
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