Understanding Technological Systems
Understanding technology using the perspective of systems.
An accessible approach to understanding the broad range of technological devices and systems.
Describes the underlying structure common to all technological objects.
Develops a framework viewing technological systems as created using components providing specific capabilities or functions. Components contributing well-defined functions interact with other components to create systems.
Major topics include the concepts of technological function and the embedding of functional capabilities in physical components, the hierarchical nature of systems, and the clustering of related systems into technological domains.
Chapter 1 Technology: Form, Function, Value
The concepts of form and function are introduced as a perspective to interpret the human-built physical world.
Chapter 2 Systems Transforming Materials, Energy, and Information
Chapter 2 Introduces the idea that the system concept can be applied for describing and understanding technology..
Chapter 3 How it Works: Components and Subfunctions
Chapter 3 focuses on identifies individual components as the interacting elements forming a technological system.
Chapter 4 Phenomena and Models
Chapter 4 looks at the role of principles of science and mathematics in describing the form and function of components.
Chapter 5 System Characteristics in a Technological System
This chapter demonstrates how features considered characteristics of systems in general appear specifically in technological systems.
Chapter 6 Component Parameterization and Transfer
Chapter 6 examines how the same component can be used in entirely different systems.
Chapter 7 System Interdependence
Chapter 7 explains how technological systems are interdependent and also interact with non-technological systems.
Chapter 8 System-Level Similarity: Technological Domains or Families
This chapter explains that groups of technological systems develop around a core system and the application of the same underlying physical principles.
Chapter 9 Technological Evolution and Innovation
This chapter describes some aspects of how technology changes and evolves from a component-system perspective.
Author Information
John Krupczak, Jr. is a professor of engineering at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation in the Division of Undergraduate Education (2013-2016). He was a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Engineering Education (CASEE) of the National Academy of Engineering (2008-2010). Krupczak was founding chair of the Technological and Engineering Literacy/Philosophy of Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Hope College students voted him Hope Outstanding Professor in 2009. Krupczak received a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a B.A. in Physics from Williams College.
