1 Empowering Innovation Together Jack Johnston, Director TABLE OF Marketing Communication Contributing Authors CONTENTS Sal Amarasinghe Andy Stanford Clark Bob Martin Michael Parks Foreword: From Idea to Prototype Akash Gujarati 3 By Sal Amarasinghe Mike Reed Technical Contributors Inside the Proof of Concept 5 Andy Stanford Clark, IBM Chief Technology Officer for UK and Ireland, Joseph Downing IBM Master Inventor Paul Golata Nihar Kulkarni Tools for Hardware Development Christina Unarut 13 Bob Martin, Senior Engineer and Subject Matter Expert in Rapid Prototyping at Microchip Technologies Editorial Contributors Designing, Producing, and Testing Circuit Boards Julie Emmons 23 Michael Parks, Senior Vice President of Engineering Design, Green Heather Hamilton Shoe Garage Design & Production Prototyping: Developing Embedded Software Hannah Baker 31 Akash Gujarati, Senior Embedded Software Engineer for Magic Leap With Special Thanks Kevin Hess Prototyping: The Art of Putting It All Together Sr. VP, Marketing 39 Mike Reed, Mechatronics Engineering Lead at HAX Russell Rasor VP, Supplier Marketing Jennifer Krajcirovic Director, Creative Design Raymond Yin Director, Technical Content Mouser and Mouser Electronics are registered trademarks of Mouser Electronics, Inc. Other products, logos, and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Reference designs, conceptual illustrations, and other graphics included herein are for informational purposes only. Copyright © 2019 Mouser Electronics, Inc.—A TTI and Berkshire 1 Hathaway company. 2 cycle as possible. This requires a well-managed, technical and functional specifications. The answer can FOREWORD: FROM IDEA TO PROTOTYPE disciplined program of building and testing, with a clear only come from one place, and that is the customer. understanding of what questions each prototype is trying You are building the right thing if the customer accepts By Sal Amarasinghe for Mouser Electronics to answer. It also involves a broad set of tools and skills, it. That’s why it is critically important to get through from industrial designers to electrical engineers and your iterative cycles and begin testing prototypes with business modelers. As you build and test, you will be your customers as soon as possible so that you are not working toward a high-fidelity prototype or MVP that is wasting time building design features they do not want. Sal Amarasinghe is an electro-mechanical engineer who is passionate about building innovative products and a step away from becoming a product that is ready for There are both human and technical aspects of every manufacture. design, and there are many reasons why customers services by integrating design, engineering, and business. After graduating from the University of Waterloo in accept some products and reject others. At the end of Canada, he spent 5 years helping companies like Apple and Microsoft designing consumer electronics that you use The goal of the prototyping process is to answer that the day, a product will only be successful if customers every day. He joined MIT as a graduate student in product design to better understand the human-centered design really big question: Are you building the right thing? The accept it and eventually buy it. If they do that, then you answer is not found by going through a fixed number are building the right thing. process. Sal is now a co-founder at Human Element, a design consulting firm, which helps large organizations of prototypes or assuring that the prototype meets its design radical new products and services for humans using their patented Whole Human Design methodology. Why build prototypes? When you have an idea and you physical design team may be working on a 3D model begin thinking about how to build it, the first and most while the engineering team is creating a schematic and fundamental question you must answer is this: Are you putting together boards and components to build rough building the right thing? The purpose of prototyping is to working prototypes. While they are working on their answer that question. respective aspects of the design, business developers are investigating the market and identifying potential Although it is a simple question, it may not have a simple customers who can become prototype testers. Medium- answer. That’s because the answer is made up of several fidelity prototypes may not be ready for customers yet, parts. Does it look right? Does it work the way it should? but they receive broader exposure and testing, and they Do customers like it? Finding the answers requires a are seriously addressing questions about how to build the multidiscipline approach involving design, engineering, necessary functionality and how the product should look. and business interests. More and more companies are adopting an integrated approach with product teams As the prototypes become more refined through made up of designers, engineers, and business people all feedback, designers and engineers will begin to merge working closely together. their efforts to create a looks-like/works-like high-fidelity prototype. This is a working model that is very close to Prototyping is an iterative process that begins with what the finished product will look like. It may serve as something as simple as a sketch, a computer design, or a minimum viable product (MVP), and it will be used for a physical mock up. This earliest stage is a low-fidelity more extensive testing with people who would be actual prototype, and its purpose is to begin testing the idea, to customers. begin answering those questions about whether this is something customers want. Even before this earliest stage Prototyping is a process of building, testing, and repeating of prototyping, designers, engineers, and business people until you define what the product will do, how it will look, get together, interview stakeholders, and begin to develop and how you will build it. Prototyping is also a process of an idea of what exactly this product is going to be and failure. Failing fast is important in a prototyping process. what features need to be in it. If you are an entrepreneurial When you build a prototype, you test it as quickly as engineer working on your own, you still need to be possible, and if it works, that’s great. If it fails, that’s answering those same questions. It’s those earliest even better because that means you’ve figured out very requirements that go into making a low-fidelity prototype. early on something that is not going to work. Your next iteration will have a better solution. The prototyping Based on initial feedback, prototyping moves forward process involves creating as many iterations as possible with looks-like physical designs and works-like functional within budget and time constraints, always working to designs. These are medium-fidelity prototypes. The solve the biggest challenges as early in the prototyping 3 4 Inside the Proof of Concept By Mouser Electronics with Andy Stanford Clark, IBM Chief Technology Officer for UK and Ireland, IBM Master Inventor 5 6 INSIDE THE PROOF OF CONCEPT By Mouser Electronics with Andy Stanford Clark, IBM Chief Technology Officer for UK and Ireland, IBM Master Inventor Professor Andy Stanford-Clark is the Chief Technology Officer for IBM in UK and Ireland. He is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Master Inventor with more than 40 patents. Andy is based at IBM’s Hursley Park laboratories in the UK, and has has been working in the area that we now call the Internet of Things for more than 20 years. He has a BSc in Computing and Mathematics, and a PhD in Computer Science. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Newcastle, an Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southampton, and a Fellow of the British Computer Society. When working through a new design, the inventor needs Sometimes the boundaries between POC and prototype to recognize where in the innovation process he or she are fuzzy. Almost as soon as you have an idea, you will is and what’s needed to move to the next stage. Most begin thinking about how to build it. And the ultimate designs begin with an idea. Next, there is a stage of idea validation of a concept is building an actual working validation that happens before moving on to the next prototype. This article is about working through the first level, which is building functional models that look and stage of engineering, which we refer to as the proof of work like the finished product. concept (POC), and getting to a point where you are ready to begin seriously building prototypes. Not everyone uses the same terminology for these stages of development. In this article and eBook, we are defining Most ideas come in the context of a problem that needs them as follows: a solution. Andy Stanford-Clark, IBM Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for UK and Ireland and IBM Master Inventor, Proof of concept (POC) – This is the first stage of idea describes it in this way. “Most of my inventions come from validation. It describes exactly what the invention will do, seeing the problem first. I see a problem out in the world, how it will work, and that it can be done. The POC uses either I come across it or a client tells me about it, and documentation and often then I sit and mull it over for a while, and some code or hardware “...the real work begin(s), and it then, ‘Bing, aha!’ I have that inspiration to prove the initial flash of in the shower.” Only after that initial rush inspiration is possible. It starts by asking basic questions of inspiration does the real work begin, must satisfy the inventor such as, ‘will this device solve the and it starts by asking basic questions that an idea is workable and problem,’ and, ‘is it technically such as, ‘will this device solve the the potential investors that problem,’ and, ‘is it technically feasible?’ it’s worth taking to the next feasible?’” stage.