GCSE Electronic Products

electronics

Research

Research really just means,, finding out stuff! So when you research you are just finding out what you need to know to help you make a good product.

When you start your project you will brainstorm (brainstorming is just a way of showing all the ideas in your head and how they relate to each other) a list of things you will need to find out, to help you design and make your product.

Just take a minute to imagine what would happen if you had to design a product, but you were not allowed to find anything out, about the components you could use; what other people had already made that was similar to your product; what kind of price you could sell your product for; what materials you could use; what the customer wanted; possible circuits you could use; how your product might impact on the environment or the people that use it etc etc.

How would you do it! You could not! So you would have to find out about all these things first, and this part of the design process is called research.

So remember that you are researching for a reason (its not just a pointless exercise). You are gathering information that will help you design a successful product

When your research is complete you will say how useful it was and how it has helped you progress your design within your research conclusion.

Areas that you should be researching:

· Existing solutions ( that means products that other people have made that do the same/similar thing as the one your designing)

· Materials research (you could find out what materials are available to use and how well they would meet your needs >woods, metals plastics etc)

· Components research (find out what electronic input, process or output components are available that would be best meet your needs)

· Circuit research (find out if there are any circuits that already do what you want and see if you could modify them)

· Testing (do some tests to see if parts of your system will work, think of things that you may need to test)

· Market Research (Questionnaire find out what people want by asking lots of people a set of questions that you make up, like what colour would you like, how much would you want to spend, how would you use this product etc etc)

· Results to questionnaire (you need show the results of your questionnaire with a bar or pie chart)

· Environmental (how will your product effect the environment. Will it be recyclable, will break after 2 weeks and then be thrown in a land fill dump and then start polluting the soil? Or will it last a long time and be easy to repair ,,,)

· Social (will your product bring people together or push them apart, will your product be controversial, will it help people, will it cause problems for some people and not others, are you being a responsible designer by making this product and putting it on the shelves for people to buy?)

· Industrial practices (how electronic products are made in the real world)

You should have at least 4 pages of research within your coursework if you want to gain full marks for this section

You should cover all these areas if you want to gain full marks for this section

You should make it clear to me that what you are researching is relevant to your product if you want to gain full marks for this section

You should explain what you think about each piece of information you gather by writing a few words next to it (why have you chosen to gather this information, is it useful and how has it helped you?)

On each page you should make it clear what that page is about and what the information is showing (so just write a few words like, this page shows research into existing products on the market that perform a similar function as mine)

Every page must have a clear heading, your full name, your candidate number and the centre number

Important note: you must show that you are able to gather research in a number of different ways:

Internet Search

Electronics Magazines

Revision Book

Asking the Teacher

Asking other professionals

Newspaper

Video (possibly internet video)

Carrying out some tests in the workshop

Questions to electronics businesses

A list to help you think of things you might need to research (you must only research it if it has some relevance to your own work)

• Find the data sheets for components you might use (don’t copy the whole data sheet onto your pages, just pick out the bits that you think are the most useful, like what the pin outs are (that means what each pin on the component does) or how big it is or how much power it needs or what its switching voltage is, the price, the weight etc etc etc)

• Find some information about the materials you might use, are you going to use thermo plastic or thermo setting plastic and what is the difference and what are the names of the different types of plastic and how can they be manipulated and joined to other materials.
• Carry out a questionnaire to find out what your customer is looking for and how they might want to use a product like yours, also what would they like it to look like

Wood, Metal and plastic, their properties.

How they are worked, their costs and availability.

Suitability for the project.

• What are the best inputs and outputs for your product. Cary out some research to find the best switches for your purpose or the best speaker or solenoid etc (why is it the best?)

• Look for other products that are already on the market that do the same thing or similar to what yours will do (why is yours going to be different and what will set yours aside from the others)

• What are the best IC’s for your purpose, does cost play a big part in your choice or is it the way that they function and you have chosen because if you use one chip then this will mean your circuit uses less space or will perform more effectively within your circuit than another…

• Can you find any circuits on the internet or in books that already do a similar thing to what yours should do? Can you find two or more circuits that if combined will function in a way that you want?

• How are you going to secure your circuit within your case (what about trying to find information about how you could do this)

• Where is your power going to come from? What is the best battery for your purpose? Will you need more than one and why? Will you need to create a slit power supply (one with a positive, zero and negative terminal).

• If you are creating a timer of any kind then how long will it need to stay on/off for,,, you will need to research CR (capacitor resistor calculations relating to charging time (CxR)).. So you should find out about this and do the calcultation to work out what size capacitor and resistor you will need,,,

• If you have an Astable ( one that goes pulses on and off continuously) then you will need to do a frequency calculation to work out what size resistors and capacitor you will need.

• If you have any potential dividers then you will need to work out there output voltage

• If you are using transistors or op amps for audio you will need to look at the voltage or current gain to see how much they will amplify your signal

• If you are using LEDs then you will need to work out how to reduce the voltage going to them so that you don’t over load them with power (otherwise they will burn out). To do this ,,,, power supply, minus the number of volts you need to be going through the LED (usually 2 Volts) > get the answer from that ( if power supply is 9 and your LED needs 2 volts then it will be 7 ) and divide this number by the amount of current you have (you can find this on the battery or you could measure it with a volt meter … you have just used Ohms Law V/I to get the value of the resistor you will need (which will be somewhere around 380 Ohms depending on the current)

• If you are using a 555 chip then understand what each pin does,,, find out about it and show this in your research… Think of a 555 chip as a control centre that controls the charging and discharging of a capacitor and gives an output depending on the state of voltage in the capacitor ( if the capacitor is charging then the output will be a forward flowing current similar or slightly less in voltage to the power supply (forward meaning positive). If the capacitor is dis-charging then the output will be a reverse flowing current (negative).. Pin 2 senses when the capacitor is at a low voltage and pin 6 senses when it is high. Pin 7 lets current flow into it or not (Pin 7 opens and closes depending on what pin 2 and 6 are sensing….. now go and find out all the details….

• If you are using a decade counter you will need to show that you understand its many uses ,, not just the one you have used if for,, how else can it be wired up to give different counting patterns…

• If you are using an Op Amp then understand what it does and how it works,, how are you connecting it? As an inverting or non inverting amplifier or are you using it as a comparator ? ( all of these just mean that the way we connect the op amp is different and makes it work in a different way),,, so you need to go and find this out

• If you are using Logic Gates then what voltage is logic 1 ? if you are only using 2 of the logic gates in an IC then how do you connect up the un used gates?

• If you are using a component that has an inductor coil (relay, solenoid, electro magnet, buzzer etc) then you will need to come up with a solution to the problem of back EMF ( Electro Motive Force ,,,< just means a back flow of electricity after the power has been turned off)

• If you are making a steady hand game then why are you using a Mono Stable before your counter? Do you know? Is it because, if you only touched you’re the wires together for a slit second it would not send a charge for long enough to trigger the decade counter,,, or is it because your decade counter may be triggered a number of times even though the wires only seemingly touch once ( debouce ).. look up switch debouce.

• How will you vacuum form your mould. Is there anything to take into account when making a mould (will any shape work? )

• Are you going to make a Printed Circuit Board or are you going to use Veraboard and why ? what is your reasoning?

• Why are you using the type of switch that you are? (its all about finding out what is available and choosing the best for you)

• Do you understand how your product would be made in the ‘real world’, in industry.

• Do you understand how important Electronics society and how it is effecting people and the way the word operates (do you have any opinions about how things are? Are you going to take some responsibility for the products you make and the impact that they may have on the world if you become a professional designer?)

The above is just to get you started. You will come up with other things that you will need to research that I have not put here…