Magnitudes

Design and Technology

Ben Craven
30/01/14

It's difficult to get people to give you an estimate, but knowing roughly how big the numbers will be - how many digits even - can be really useful. Whether it is cost, force or power, putting the numbers into a project as soon as possible is important. 

Using ingenuity and logical thinking to get a ball-park figure to see if the project or idea is even feasible is key at an early stage. It may not be that accurate, but even finding out if the product price will be 100's or 1000's may make or break a project. It is important to remember how optimistic or pessimistic you have been in your figures as this can determine your conclusions. If you have purposely overestimated for the worst case scenario then remember this at the end.

It is a very useful skill to be able to estimate values quickly and get an idea of whether the value seems feasible for whatever application it may be. Even quick calculations in shops of the expected price can be a useful exercise to check you're paying the right amount.

Deciding early in the design process whether the idea has the potential to work - whether in terms of costing, power consumption or dimensions - will save a lot of time. Developing a concept to a detailed design phase to then discover it is not feasible would be expensive in terms of money and time.