​D&T：Ben Craven

Rough Calculation

In the lecture, Ben Craven interacted with everyone in a practical way, brought the concept of ‘rough calculation’, and had a few discussions with each group. He then offered four questions and every two groups made the calculation of the same question and then made comparisons. The four questions are:

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1. Not my cup of tea

2. Wood you believe it

3. Miles per mug

4. Read all about it

I was divided into the second topic. The requirement is that there is no need to use a calculator during calculation, only ‘rough calculation’ can be applied. I marked some basic units and then started the process of rough calculation, which I think is a smart way because some large values can make the calculation become harder and more complex. After applying it, my result is close to the result shown by Ben.

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 This lecture really broadens my view and I now know that rough calculation is of paramount significance to product design, especially in the earlier stage of designing the prototype. I need to focus on the macro-side of the product rather than every micro detail. It really gives me huge inspiration that I need to perform simple modelling at the beginning of the project to speed up the development of the whole project. And after the whole foundation of each project is determined, I can pay much attention to the details, which provides me with high efficiency.