The Scientific Process or Engineering Design Process
“What’s the Difference?”
While scientists study hownature works, engineers create new things, such as products, websites,environments, and experiences. Because scientists and engineers have differentobjectives, they follow different processes in their work. Scientists perform experimentsusing the scientific process; whereas, engineers follow thecreativity-based engineering design process. Both processes can bebroken down into a series of steps, as seen in the diagram and table below.
Scientific Method |
Engineering Method |
Question, variables, and hypothesis. |
Statement (instead of a question) about the need to design something that fulfills xyz need.
Summary of what will be built to address the need and the specific design specifications the solution will fulfill (instead of a hypothesis).
Specifications against which the solution will be judged successful or not (instead of variables). |
Background research |
Background research. This research identifies what solutions exist, what has been tried, and what science might be applied to a new approach. |
Materials list. |
Materials list. |
Experimental procedure. |
Documentation of how the student built and tested the prototype(s) or finished solution. |
Data analysis and discussion. |
Results of field testing of prototype(s) or finished solution. What was observed and/or measured? How did the prototype(s) or finished product measure up against the original design specifications? Did it achieve the goal? Show the data either way. |
Conclusions. |
How successful was the prototype(s) or finished solution? Did it perform as intended? Why or why not? What were the design and implementation challenges? |
Ideas for future research. |
What could have gone better in the design process? How could the design be improved with further prototyping/testing? |
Project display board. |
Project display board. |
ntent here.