Product Design

Catalog description

This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product development, entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new product and culminate in the creation of a prototype, which is launched at an end-of-semester public Design Fair. The course project is a physical good - but most of the tools and methods apply to services and software products. The course is open to any Penn sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student. The course follows a studio format, in which students meet for three hours each week with Professor Marcovitz for lectures and hands-on making, and students will complete 90 minutes of asynchronous, self-paced content from Professor Ulrich on their own time each week. Professor Ulrich gives one in-person lecture during the semester and attends the Design Fair, but is not present at the weekly studio sessions.