Designed Systems
Systems thinking can now be made explicit—suggesting analysis of parts, subsystems, interactions, and matching. Student projects should now entail analyzing, designing, assembling, and troubleshooting systems—mechanical, electrical, and biological—with easily discernable components. The idea of system should be expanded to include connections among systems. For example, a can opener and a can may each be thought of as a system, but they both—together with the person using them—form a larger system without which neither can be put to its intended use.