Colorado School of Mines | Department of Mechanical Engineering
MEGN 301 is the cornerstone design course in the mechanical engineering curriculum at Colorado School of Mines. Students learn a structured product design methodology — from identifying customer needs and developing engineering specifications through concept generation, prototyping, and design verification. The course bridges analytical coursework with hands-on practice, preparing students to approach open-ended mechanical design problems with confidence, rigor, and creativity.
All documents are open educational resources and are automatically rebuilt on every push to main via GitHub Actions.
| Document | Description | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Master Reference Document | 23-chapter comprehensive reference covering design methodology, analysis techniques, prototyping, and professional practice | |
| Student Guide | Course logistics, schedules, assignment details, rubrics, and operational reference |
MEGN301/
├── .github/workflows/
│ └── build-pdfs.yml GitHub Actions CI workflow
│
├── mrd/ Master Reference Document (modular LaTeX)
│ ├── main.tex Driver file
│ ├── preamble.tex Packages, colors, custom environments
│ ├── .latexmkrc latexmk config (handles makeindex)
│ ├── frontmatter/ Title page, preface, reading guide, safety
│ ├── chapters/ 23 numbered chapters + 3 part intros
│ ├── appendices/ Glossary, references, appendices
│ └── master_figs/ All figures (68 PNGs)
│
├── student_guide/ Student Guide (modular LaTeX)
│ ├── MEGN301_Student_Guide.tex Driver file
│ └── sections/ 13 section files
│
├── megn301_master_reference.pdf Pre-built MRD (committed by CI)
├── MEGN301_Student_Guide.pdf Pre-built Student Guide (committed by CI)
└── README.md
- Problem Definition & Stakeholder Engagement — Identifying the right problem, stakeholder analysis, concept of operations, competitive benchmarking
- Value Proposition & Triple Bottom Line — Feasibility, desirability, viability, sustainability (FDVS) framework; competitive analysis; cost analysis
- Writing Requirements & Defining Architecture — SDRD, functional decomposition, trade studies, FMEA, interface definitions
- Concept Generation & Early Design — Morphological charts, decision matrices, prototype types, BOM development
- Verification, Validation & Test Plans — V&V concepts, TAID methods, test procedures, VCRM, boundary testing
- Subsystem Integration — Integration sequence planning, N² diagrams, debugging, configuration management
- Operations & Maintenance — Lifecycle cost, serviceability, quick-start guides, maintenance manuals
- Post-Build Testing, Verification & Validation — Test execution workflow, non-conformance reports, root cause analysis
- End of Life & System Retirement — Design for recycling, design for disassembly, disposal planning
- Electrical & Fluid Connectors — Connector family selection, failure modes, NPT vs BSP standards
- Power Supplies, Motors & Pumps — Motor/pump sizing, driver selection, battery sizing, belt conveyor examples
- Power Architecture & Circuit Safety — Power budget design, grounding strategy, protection circuits, EMI management
- Electronics Fundamentals, Safety & Component Selection — Ohm's Law, KVL/KCL, voltage dividers, electrical safety
- Principles of Sensors and Actuators — Transduction principles, six-criteria selection framework, signal conditioning
- Mechanical Fasteners & Bearings — Metric fastener specification, threaded inserts, bearing selection, torque guidelines
- Mechanical Power Transmission — Motor-to-load matching, gear design (including 3D-printed gears), speed/torque trade-offs
- Designing for Injection Molding — Six DFM rules, uniform walls, draft angles, radii, tooling economics
- Printed Circuit Board Design Fundamentals — PCB structure, grounding and decoupling, trace width, bring-up protocol
- Microcontrollers & the ESP32 — MCU fundamentals, GPIO pin map, communication protocols, firmware best practices
- Systematic Debugging and Troubleshooting — Debugging pyramid, five-step protocol, bottom-up integration verification
- Preliminary Design Review (PDR) — "Should this design work?" Problem verification, requirements validation, concept selection rationale
- Critical Design Review (CDR) — "Will this design work?" Detailed design completeness, manufacturability, verification procedures
- Final Design Review (FDR) — "How well did it work?" System validation, as-built documentation, lessons learned, operations package
Requires a TeX Live or MiKTeX installation with pdflatex and makeindex.
# Master Reference Document (3-pass for index and cross-references)
cd mrd && pdflatex main && makeindex main.idx -s indexstyle.ist && pdflatex main && pdflatex main
# Student Guide (2-pass)
cd student_guide && pdflatex MEGN301_Student_Guide && pdflatex MEGN301_Student_Guide- LaTeX — Typesetting and document preparation
- GitHub Actions — Continuous integration; PDFs rebuild automatically on every push to
main - Modular document architecture — Each chapter and section is an independent
.texfile for parallel authoring
These materials are open educational resources developed at Colorado School of Mines and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You are free to share and adapt the materials for any purpose, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit. See LICENSE for full details.
Suggested attribution:
MEGN 301: Mechanical Integration & Design course materials by Adam W. Duran, Colorado School of Mines, used under CC BY 4.0. Source: https://github.com/professor-duran/MEGN301
Documents are living resources that evolve each semester as the course is refined. If you adopt these materials, I'd love to hear about it -- please reach out so I can learn from your experience.
Adam W. Duran | Assistant Teaching Professor, PE, PMP | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Colorado School of Mines
Email: aduran@mines.edu Website: adamwduran.com