Ethan Weston
Introduction to Engineering and Design
Mr. Phillips
6 February 2021
There are multiple ways to brainstorm new ideas for a product or service. One of those ways is
to create a morphological chart, which is a more table like list of the function and means tree. The
primary functions go in the first column while the means go in the remaining columns. With the chart,
you can combine different means together to get many different combinations of a design. However,
some of the combinations do not work as well as other combinations. For example, if we are looking at
the production of a kids drinking container, having a bottle and a bottle top would work way better
together than if the container were not foldable and yet still be made from flexible materials. In other
words, some combinations of means work better than others. Additionally, if you add objectives to the
chart, other possible combinations may present themselves. Morphological charts are a great way to
organize different feasible and non-feasible ways of carrying out the desired functions.