This detailed rubric is designed for feedback and assessment. It includes audience, ethics, and graphics along with one criteria specific to engineering (which could be easily removed).

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The Problem Definition Statement is a brief document that draws on the team’s initial research, through the library, Internet and/or interviews to identify a problem or a need. The problem definition statement should consider the following:

• A one or two sentence definition of a problem the team intends to solve with an engineering design.
• What would the final design product look like in order to resolve the defined need (a product, product improvement, civil or architectural project, etc.)?
• How will the design satisfy that need?
• How is that need currently being satisfied and how will the new design change and improve things? (This provides an opportunity to justify the design.)
• Who will use or benefit from the design?
• What other ways might the need be met? What alternatives are there to the proposed design? (This provides an opportunity to assess competition in the marketplace for a product.)
• What problems will have to be surmounted in doing the design? (This will demonstrate that the team recognizes stumbling blocks, such as limitations on time, resources and expertise, they might encounter.)
• What constraints, technical, economic, environmental, social and political, must the design satisfy? Think of all the possible reasons the design might not be accepted.
• What constitutes a successful design? What criteria will be used to evaluate the design? Adequate development of the problem definition requires research into the existing state of the art, standards and criteria that the solution must satisfy (e.g., regional construction codes; agency regulations such as EPA, OSHA, etc.), and a clear indication of the knowledge and expertise that your team must acquire to accomplish its goals.

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