How this is scored
Five stages, the engineering design process, the same five on every project in this course. Learn it once.
Two kinds of score
Stages 1 through 4 are team scores. They judge shared work — your documentation, your drawings, your data, your iteration log. Everyone on the team gets the same number.
Stage 5 is yours alone. Same presentation, individual scores. Two people on the same team can walk away with different numbers on Communicate, and that is the design, not a mistake.
Your daily work — safety, cleanup, effort, organization — isn't scored here at all. That lives in the daily standards.
Define the Problem
Do you actually understand what the client asked for?
Restates the client's ask in your own words, not copied off the brief. Names the binding constraints and identifies which one actually limits the design. States the success metric and the tradeoff accepted to get it — every gain in distance costs you something else.
Repeats the brief accurately but without interpretation. Constraints are listed rather than weighed. The goal is named but the tradeoff isn't identified.
The problem is stated vaguely or incorrectly. Constraints are missing. No clear success metric.
Research and Brainstorm
Did you find out what's already known, and generate real options?
Sources are curated — each one has a note saying what it's for. Multiple hand sketches, labeled, more than one view, showing genuinely different approaches rather than one idea drawn repeatedly. Open questions are written down as questions.
Research is collected but not curated, or thin in one key area. Sketches exist but show one idea, or are unlabeled, or skip the design questions.
Little research, or links with no notes. One rough sketch, or sketches made after the car was already built.
Prototype
Did you plan it before you built it, and can you show the build?
Includes a formal design representation appropriate to the project — an Onshape model, a dimensioned technical drawing, or a scaled hand sketch with real measurements — not just photos of the finished object. Build progress documented as it happened. First-run data recorded. Explains at least one decision made because of something learned in class.
A design representation exists but is incomplete, undimensioned, or doesn't match what was built. Build documentation is thin or added at the end. First-run data recorded loosely.
Built without a plan. No drawing or model, or one that contradicts the actual car. Photos only of the finished object.
Iterate
Did you change it on purpose, based on evidence?
At least two documented changes, each with a stated reason and before-and-after data. One change per trial. Explains one change that didn't work and what it revealed about the car.
Changes are documented but reasons are general, or several things changed at once so the data can't attribute the result. Only successful changes reported.
Built once and tested once. Changes made by feel with no record, or no changes at all.
Communicate
Scored per student. Everyone answers a question at the end.
Explains their own contribution clearly, and justifies at least one design decision using a specific quantity, measurement, or principle from class. Can answer a follow-up question about a part of the project they didn't personally build.
Describes what the team did, but justifications are general — "it worked better," "we liked it more" — or limited to their own piece. Struggles when asked about work outside their lane.
Reports what happened without explaining why, or defers questions to teammates.
What "a specific quantity or principle" sounds like
This is the line between a 3 and a 5 on Communicate, so here it is out loud.
A 3: "We made the wheels bigger and it went farther."
A 5: "We went from three-inch to six-inch drive wheels, so one axle rotation covers about twice the ground. That costs us torque at the wheel, which nearly stalled it off the line until we thinned the axle. Our average went from 14 feet to 26."
Performance is separate
The five stages above score your engineering. How far or fast the car actually goes is scored on its own, by the formulas on the project page. A brilliantly documented car that goes eight feet still scores well on the rubric — and a lucky car with no documentation still scores badly.