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Numerous books and articles have been written about both the scientific method and the engineering design process. It is highly recommended that you study this topic as the quality of your project depends on your understanding of a proper method. The below text seeks to define the key concepts which should guide your work process and project report.

The scientific method essentially describes a method to “ask questions and perform experiments to answer them” or more specifically the scientist:

• Identifies a research problem
• Does background research
• Constructs a hypothesis
• Tests the hypothesis with an experiment
• Analyzes experimental results
• Concludes if the results do align, align partially or do not align with the hypothesis.

The engineering design process is somewhat different as engineers have a different objective: They “create solutions to problems” or more specifically the engineer:

• Identifies a problem
• Does background research
• Define project aim and specify requirements
• Designs, develop and test prototype solutions
• Concludes if the solutions meet, partially meet or do not meet the project aim and the specified requirements.

When working in a highly specialized or novel technology domain, the distinction often becomes more difficult though. Some scientists use the engineering design process to create a novel thing in order to test a hypothesis, and some engineers are facing the research question “is it even possible to create this new thing”. In your thesis or project I recommend that you largely follow the engineering design process.

An engineering project begin with a problem which in general terms is a situation that needs a solution:

• Something that is needed but does not exist.
• Something that exists but needs to be improved.
• Lack of knowledge about a topic that thus needs to be explored.

The above definition is derived after having consulted multiple sources on the topic. It is clear that “classical” engineering projects fits well within this scope.

• Design one or more solutions

• Develop prototypes of the solutions

• Test the prototypes