Courses:

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For students and teams who have started a sustainable-development project in D-Lab (SP.721, SP.722), the IDEAS Competition, Design for Demining (SP.776), Product Engineering Processes (2.009), or elsewhere, this class provides a setting to continue developing projects for field implementation. Topics covered include prototyping techniques, materials selection, design-for-manufacturing, field-testing, and project management. All classwork will directly relate to the students' projects, and the instructor will consult on the projects during weekly lab time. There are no exams. Teams are encouraged to enroll together.

Ulrich, Karl T., and Steven D. Eppinger. Product Design and Development. 3rd ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 9780072471465.

This is a six-unit class: three hours a week will be spent in class and the remaining three hours will be spent doing homework and working on the design projects, both individually and in groups. Because much of the work for this seminar will be done during class time, attendance is essential. Students missing a class meeting should contact the instructor and their group to make up the work. Students may not miss more than two classes during the semester. This seminar is graded on an A/B/C/D/F basis, furthermore it is a class where your work is impacting the lives of people around the world and we expect an appropriate level of commitment.

Roughly one session each week will be largely dedicated to group work and will include progress reports and group consulting. Groups should come to class with a work plan for the class so they can get things done while they are together as a group. Groups will also need to schedule time for meetings outside of the class session.

In this class, you will be working on projects and inventions as individuals or in groups. All of MIT's intellectual property rules apply to any projects you work on during this class. For further information about these policies, you can contact the IP office directly. The Web site for the office is MIT Office of Intellectual Property Counsel and some of the policies on "Ownership of Intellectual Property" can be seen at Information Policies.

That being (carefully) said, students can own the rights to their projects if they have not made significant use of MIT resources. The machine shop, library, desktop computers and so on are not considered significant MIT resources. It is unlikely that you will receive "significant MIT resources" (e.g. certain types and amounts of money) from this class. Unless you have received other resources from MIT outside of this class, it is unlikely that MIT will have any rights to the intellectual property you develop in this class. Please contact the IP office with any questions.