Element G: Construction of a Testable Prototype

Week 8: Construction of a Testable Prototype

PLTW Element G — Construction of a Testable Prototype.

Mock-up / Concept Model

• Before full construction, build a low-fidelity mock-up or concept model (a rough hardware mock-up, a UI mockup, or a skeleton codebase with stubbed features) to catch structural problems early.

Prototype Build (Assembly) Procedure

• Write a step-by-step Assembly / Build Procedure — the steps another team member (or a future you) would need to reproduce the build. This includes environment setup, dependency installation, and build/deploy steps for software.

Preliminary Design Review

• Hold a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) with your team (and mentor, if available): walk through the build procedure, the BOM, and the timeline from Weeks 5-7 one more time before committing full build time.
• Log any changes that come out of the PDR as new Kanban Issues.

Construct the MVP

• Build a working Minimum Viable Product — the smallest version of your solution that can be meaningfully tested against your Sprint 1 PRD metrics.
• Run your first test pass and log the results against the Sprint 1 PRD targets (e.g. latency, accuracy, weight, cost) even if the MVP doesn’t hit them yet — this baseline is what Sprint 3 evaluation compares against.

Core Deliverables

• Mock-up / concept model.
• Documented build/assembly procedure.
• Preliminary Design Review notes.
• Working MVP + first test results logged against Sprint 1 PRD targets.