Evolution of Design Concepts from a Highly Successful Graduate Student Design Team

This research paper describes the concept evolution of a student design team's early design process as they participated in NASA's 2021 BIG Idea Challenge. The team and final design concept began as a course project that was accepted by the BIG Idea judges and led to the filing of a patent application. The BIG Idea Challenge addressed the high-risk issue of lunar dust mitigation, requiring the team of student engineers to design for an environment in which they had no previous knowledge or experience. An analysis of the students' use of design tools and methods that led to this successful design result in the context of a difficult and unknown problem, as well as the pedagogical framework within which the methods were taught, can be instructive for design course pedagogy and for guiding design methods in the industry. An analysis of design team documentation required by the course and digitized for team-sharing during the COVID pandemic produced a detailed understanding of the concept generation, evolution, and selection process. The structured application of multiple concept generation and refinement tools, including 6-3-5, TRIZ, and bioinspired design, allowed for the student to explore a wide range of solutions, and contribute meaningful improvements to their leading concepts. Additionally, extensive background research conducted before and during the concept generation phase enabled the design team to incorporate existing technologies in novel form factors. The final concept selection phase also included multiple consultations with experts and a critical analysis of the lunar environment to ensure that the team might be best positioned to have their product considered for implementation.