Can I Teach Engineering Design?

As I'm designing an engineering design course I'll teach in 2017 Spring term, I'm faced with the question "Can I teach engineering design?" It could be interpreted as whether I have a credential to teach engineering design, and the answer is yes. In fact, I think each and every engineering faculty members should be able to teach engineering design, depending on what we mean by "design". There are some of us who think that design means the ability to conceive a product and to draw it. This aspect is what I call the aesthetics of the design of a product. The conceiving and drawing parts attempt to improve the appearance of the product. We can learn this, but engineers are not natural in doing this.

Engineers are more natural in focusing on the functionality and optimality of the design of a product. Functionality has to do with what we use the product for. Lifting, pushing, picking, pulling, opening, separating are some of mechanical functions I can name. These functions can be analyzed mechanically using computer software or using mathematical equations. Optimality has to do with reconciling more than one function we have for the product. We want a cork opener that is safe, easy to use, light, and cheap. The four ideas: safe, easy to use, light, and cheap represent properties of the design that have to be optimized as the cork opener is used to open a wine bottle.

I think the aesthetics and engineering (functionality and optimality) of a design are two separate issues. Ideally, they are one. Yet as disciplines to study and teach, they cannot be taught at the same time. There are just too many things to worry about when they are combined into one.