Can you help with a Design Project?

[Riddller]

Hello! I am in a class at the University of Kansas that teaches Engineering Design. We have been tasked to design a piece of equipment for baseball that can be used as a training aid. Requirements are that it can be adjustable for differing levels of experience, to the extent that it could give an advantage to a beginner or increase the difficulty of play for an expert. We are trying to get a set of requirements this product should incorporate from any baseball related source. This product will not be built, only taken as far in the design process to where it could be built. If you could answer a few questions it would help greatly.

We've made an online survey of about 15 questions that you can view here (http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=355745), or you can look at the following questions (the same as on the survey) and answer whatever you want. Any help at all in this will be greatly appreciated!!!

1. How do you relate to baseball? (i.e. are you a player, coach, retailer, manufacturer, fan, etc…?)

2. What do you think are important skills that must be mastered to excel in baseball?

3. What skills are the most difficult to improve on in baseball?

4. What skills do you believe do not receive enough attention in training?

5. How much time in a practice do you think a player should spend with a given training aid before moving on?

6. What are the most important factors you would consider when shopping for a new training aid? Can you rank them (1 being least important, 5 being very important)?

7. What sort of benefits would you like to see from the use of the training aid?

8. What sort of price range would you being looking at for the purchase of a new training aid?

9. What are some training aids available now that you find (or think may be) very useful?

10. Please rank each of the following factors as to their importance when looking for a training aid:
(1 = least important, 5 = very important)

Cost
Appearance
Weight
Ease of Assembly
Reliability
Ease of Repair
Ease of Use
Size
Simplicity
Benefit to the Player
Transportability

11. Can you think of any training aids that you would like to see developed?

12. Are there any current training aids that you think could be improved upon?

13. Any other comments?

[LesPaul]

13. Gotta love the engineering approach of "approaching" the customer :D

Sophomore engineering student?

[Riddller]

Nope, actually I'm in my second to last semester. It kind of sucks 'cuz this is for the class on "How to do a Senior Design Project" and at the same time, I'm working on my Senior Design Project (different from this one)! The Prof. only gave us a week to get input from many different sources (the "approaching the customer" approach as you so aptly put it!) and its tough! Almost no one in my group can get anyone to talk to them! Oh well, guess I'll keep trying.

[LesPaul]

Good luck, the only reason I asked was the EE department at my college is trying to decide when and where to add the engineering design class but all of the ME's get the class their sophomore year. Engineering is all about the multi-tasking.

[Riddller]

Yeah, ours is designed to be taken in the Spring of your junior year, but I'm graduating a semester early (next Dec.) so its at kind of a weird time for me. And I here you about the multitasking! Try cramming a 5 year degree in to 3.5 years! It's killing me!