1. (a) Implementation.

   1. (1) The provisions of this section shall be implemented by school districts beginning with the 2025-2026 school year.
   2. (2) School districts shall implement the employability skills student expectations listed in §127.15(d)(2) of this chapter (relating to Career and Technical Education Employability Skills) as an integral part of this course.
2. (b) General requirements. This course is recommended for students in Grades 11 and 12. Prerequisite: Mechanical Design I. Students shall be awarded two credits for successful completion of this course.

3. (c) Introduction.

   1. (1) Career and technical education instruction provides content aligned with challenging academic standards, industry-relevant technical knowledge, and college and career readiness skills for students to further their education and succeed in current and emerging professions.
   2. (2) The Engineering Career Cluster focuses on planning, designing, testing, building, and maintaining machines, structures, materials, systems, and processes using empirical evidence and science, technology, and math principles. This career cluster includes occupations ranging from mechanical engineer and drafter to electrical engineer and mapping technician.
   3. (3) Students enrolled in Mechanical Design II demonstrate knowledge and skills associated with the design development and validation of a prototype solution to meet a given set of requirements. Students identify project stakeholders; manage projects; evolve requirements; model system solutions; develop, test, and refine prototypes; and validate project solutions. Emphasis is placed on budget management, professional documentation, conducting project status updates, critiquing design reviews, and team collaboration.
   4. (4) Students are encouraged to participate in extended learning experiences such as career and technical student organizations and other organizations that foster leadership and career development in the profession such as student chapters of related professional associations.
   5. (5) Statements that contain the word "including" reference content that must be mastered, while those containing the phrase "such as" are intended as possible illustrative examples.

4. (d) Knowledge and skills.

   1. (1) The student researches and describes ethics pertaining to engineering. The student is expected to explain how engineering ethics as defined by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors apply to engineering practice.

   2. (2) The student understands how to implement an engineering design process to develop a product or solution. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) describe and implement the stages of an engineering design process to construct a model;
      2. (B) explain how factors, including complexity, scope, resources, ethics, regulations, manufacturability, maintainability, and technology, impact stages of the engineering design process;
      3. (C) explain how stakeholders impact an engineering design process; and
      4. (D) analyze how failure is often an essential component of the engineering design process.

   3. (3) The student explores the methods and aspects of project management in relation to projects. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) research and explain the process and phases of project management, including initiating, planning, executing, and closing;
      2. (B) explain the roles and responsibilities of team members, including project managers and leads;
      3. (C) research and evaluate methods and tools available for managing a project;
      4. (D) discuss the importance of developing and implementing a system for the organization of project documentation such as file naming conventions, document release control, and version control;
      5. (E) describe how project requirements, constraints, and deliverables impact the project schedule and influence and are influenced by an engineering design;
      6. (F) explain how a project budget, including materials, equipment, and labor, is developed and maintained; and
      7. (G) describe the importance of management of change (MOC) and how MOC applies to project planning.

   4. (4) Collaboration. The student develops teamwork skills. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) explain and apply sensemaking skills such as recognizing team members who require additional clarity and addressing team members to provide clarity;
      2. (B) apply methods such as Gantt charts, work breakdown structure, Agile, and critical path method to structure a project;
      3. (C) apply principles of critique within the team such as describing, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating;
      4. (D) develop and present action plans to positively support the team's work relationships;
      5. (E) explain and model how to provide an effective critique of team members on topics such as team performance, test performance, project development, or presentation;
      6. (F) explain and model how to provide an effective critique of other teams on topics such as presentation, problem definition, schedule, and solution justification;
      7. (G) analyze and evaluate critique received from team members and other teams; and
      8. (H) develop a design review presentation to provide status and solicit feedback on the design problem and solution.

   5. (5) Documentation. The student documents information gathered and interpretations developed throughout the applied engineering process. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) generate documents such as executive summaries, reverse engineering forms, test reports, failure documents, system black box models, engineering notebooks, and drawing packages by applying professional standards and templates;
      2. (B) select the appropriate document format for the information being communicated based on the audience;
      3. (C) explain and justify the structure and sequence of how the information is presented in the engineering documents;
      4. (D) create assembly and user manuals for peer review; and
      5. (E) generate a final design report that focuses on the project scope and solution with appendices to capture all relevant design information such as the design process used, requirements compliance matrix, concept reports, and test reports.

   6. (6) Project management. The student reviews and applies basic project management strategies following a proposal-justification-approval process for each significant model considered. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) generate a project management plan that includes time and deliverable estimates;
      2. (B) review and update periodically the project management plan based on appropriate industry standard practices such as stage-gate and Agile Project Management; team structure and formation; and project modeling such as flow charts, Gantt charts, Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT), critical path method, and work breakdown structures;
      3. (C) create model or test proposals for review; and
      4. (D) compare project management approaches such as stage-gate and Agile.

   7. (7) Stakeholder. The student understands how to engage stakeholders, including end user, consumer, fabricator, maintenance, the design team, and other engineers. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) describe how an engineer's professional responsibility applies to stakeholders;
      2. (B) develop a journey map or equivalent tool to model how the stakeholder interacts with the product; and
      3. (C) explain the importance of maintaining engagement with the stakeholder throughout the project.

   8. (8) Design requirements. The student understands the importance of the role of requirements in the mechanical engineering design process. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) identify and solicit stakeholder requirements;
      2. (B) generate, refine, and document product and project requirements throughout the project;
      3. (C) document requirements in correct format with appropriate standards such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), military, and International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE);
      4. (D) verify that each requirement can be associated to at least one stakeholder;
      5. (E) verify that each stakeholder can be associated to at least one requirement;
      6. (F) discuss the importance of the relation between requirements and respective stakeholders;
      7. (G) analyze how key mechanical design concepts such as heat transfer, mechanics of materials, statics, or fluids impact the design process, design requirements, and design decisions; and
      8. (H) explain how requirements drive the project.

   9. (9) System modeling. The student generates multiple abstract models of mechanical systems using representations such as schematic diagramming and function structure modeling. The student is expected to:

      1. (A) create models of various mechanical system concepts;
      2. (B) compare different models against the appropriate requirements;
      3. (C) extract new system requirements from the models;
      4. (D) create models to communicate engineering design solutions to stakeholders for a project;
      5. (E) discuss conservation principles of energy, matter, and motion; and
      6. (F) apply conservation principles throughout the system model.

   10. (10) Design space modeling. The student models conceptual design spaces using morphological matrices. The student is expected to:

       1. (A) select the key requirements for the problem;
       2. (B) generate multiple means to address each key requirement to populate a morphological matrix;
       3. (C) generate multiple integrated solutions by selecting means from each requirement for further modeling and refinement; and
       4. (D) calculate the total number of possible solutions captured in the generated morphological matrix.

   11. (11) Concept generation. The student generates multiple systematic concepts using appropriate ideation tools. The student is expected to:

       1. (A) explain the rules of ideation tools such as brainstorming, 6-3-5, Gallery Method, C-Sketch, and concept mapping;
       2. (B) apply ideation tools to generate multiple concepts for a problem; and
       3. (C) compare the ideation tools based on the rules, number of people, representation, and purpose.

   12. (12) Concept pruning. The student prunes sets of concepts using design tools such as decision matrices, pair-wise comparison, and pro-con lists. The student is expected to:

       1. (A) use and explain absolute or relative decision matrices to prune a set of concepts;
       2. (B) use and explain pair-wise comparisons to prune a set of concepts;
       3. (C) use and explain pro-con lists to prune a set of concepts;
       4. (D) explain why it is important to use multiple pruning tools in design; and
       5. (E) explain why the pruning tools are not for selecting concepts.

   13. (13) Prototyping and testing. The student fabricates multiple physical prototypes ranging from parts to subsystems to final integrated prototypes to gather information needed to support mechanical engineering design decision making. The student is expected to:

       1. (A) develop prototyping proposals that include cost, time, and effort estimates; desired information; and testing plans;
       2. (B) use appropriate tools and materials to fabricate prototypes;
       3. (C) evaluate and execute testing plans for each prototype to gather information or check requirement satisfaction;
       4. (D) extract and document new requirements from prototyping and testing; and
       5. (E) justify the purpose for each physical or virtual model constructed against the cost of making the model.

   14. (14) Embodiment and refinement. The student refines design solutions by selecting and sizing components appropriately. Students justify material choices based on the requirements defined. The student is expected to:

       1. (A) construct geometric models and drawings to represent designed system;
       2. (B) justify and use appropriate analytical and simulation tools to correlate the changes in parameters of the models with changes in the performance of the modeled system;
       3. (C) justify design decisions using requirements such as functionality, cost, performance, or time;
       4. (D) use appropriate tools and materials to fabricate a final prototype;
       5. (E) develop final product documents such as bill of materials, assembly models, user manual, and assembly instructions; and
       6. (F) explain the evolution of requirements between earlier and final prototypes.

   15. (15) Solution validation. The student tests and verifies requirements throughout the project. The student understands the importance of discovering new requirements through testing and simulation. The student is expected to:

       1. (A) analyze information gained from testing and simulation to document new or refined requirements;
       2. (B) document simulations or tests using an appropriate report template;
       3. (C) design and execute simulations or tests to validate functional requirements are met;
       4. (D) explain why engineering design processes are iterative; and
       5. (E) discuss how continuous improvement and design iteration are related.

   16. (16) Budget. The student plans, monitors, and updates project budgets throughout the design project. The student is expected to:

       1. (A) create budgets for initial project costs such as raw materials, purchased parts, salvaged parts, hardware, taxes, shipping, and handling categories;
       2. (B) create a Bill of Materials cost report for the final build;
       3. (C) compare and explain any differences between the final product build cost and the project budget;
       4. (D) monitor and update the project budget throughout the duration of the project;
       5. (E) prepare budget status reports that include explanations of spenddown rates and changes to the budget; and
       6. (F) explain the importance of budget tracking in design projects.

Source Note:The provisions of this §127.412 adopted to be effective August 1, 2025, 50 TexReg 4876.