Paper Prototyping

Prototyping allows the designer to understand if their software is user friendly and get the opinion of the user before actually building the product.



Paper Prototyping Website - Testing a Web Shop

In this video, the goal is for the user to find and order shirts with a turtleneck.


Paper Mock Up - Trip Planning Concept
In this video, the goal is for the user to create a trip, in which the software plans out where the user can use public facilities if necessary and add other cities.


PhotoTron Paper Prototype
In this video, the goal is for the user to edit and print pictures using this software.


rollTop

I created a paper prototype for a rollTop. A rollTop is a laptop that can be rolled into a tube to allow the user for easily carry the laptop. The rollTop unrolled the keyboard and monitor, and the tube is the power supply, where one end plugs into the computer and the other into the power source. For more information, visit http://myrolltop.com/.


I have spent 4 hours on this assignment.

Who is Frederick Brooks?

Summary of the WSOM Design Requirements Workshop - Day 1 Video (0:00 - 12:20)

The video starts out with Mr. Brooks presenting the meaning of design. Mr. Brooks goes on to talk about the "larger context of the whole design process". Mr. Brooks talks about ways to study the design process and why we should study this process. He believes other people can be thought design as well.

Brooks mentions Sir Francis Bacon's Reason asking can we learn from the older designs, so we can get to newer designs faster? 19th century designers' designs were solo designs, however in the 21st century, designers work in a team to build a design. Talks about how engineers should think of design, perhaps using a mono-rooted design tree. He says there should be a goal, desiderata, critical budget, etc. He mentions several examples about software and computer architecture.

Mentions his 187 page design log for the extension of the 4-bedroom design of his home. He has asked a team to create a digital copy of the log and figure out what part of the log are key, and create a design tree. The most important thing is that we do not know what the goal is. We do not know what we are trying to build.

Talks about a project engineer wanted a database which kept track of the chain status of his drawings. The project engineer kept asking Mr. Brooks to change the design of the database. The most useful thing Mr. Brooks was doing for the engineer was helping him decide what he wanted and how he wanted to implement his design.

You cannot separate the design process from the requirements process.

Frederick Brooks

According to wikipedia.com, Mr. Brooks is a software engineer and computer scientist best known for managing IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package. He later wrote a book called The Mythical Man-Month, in which he wrote about the process. Brooks also founded the Computer Science Department at the University of North Carolina.

In a 2010 interview by Kevin Kelly for an article[2] in Wired Magazine, Brooks was asked "What do you consider your greatest technological achievement?" Brooks responded "The most important single decision I ever made was to change the IBM 360 series from a 6-bit byte to an 8-bit byte, thereby enabling the use of lowercase letters. That change propagated everywhere."

Francis Bacon

According to wikipedia.com, Mr. Bacon was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.

Brunelleschi

According to wikipedia.com, Mr. Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture (churches and chapels, fortifications, a hospital, etc), mathematics, engineering (hydraulic machinery, clockwork mechanisms, theatrical machinery, etc) and even ship design. His principal surviving works are to be found in Florence, Italy.

Christopher Wren

According to wikipedia.com, Mr. Wren is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history. He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710. The principal creative responsibility for a number of the churches is now more commonly attributed to others in his office, especially Nicholas Hawksmoor. Other notable buildings by Wren include the Royal Naval College in Greenwich and the south front of Hampton Court Palace.

Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a notable astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist, as well as an architect. He was a founder of the Royal Society (president 1680–82), and his scientific work was highly regarded by Sir Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal.

Herbert Simon

According to wikipedia.com, Mr. Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, whose research ranged across the fields of many different studies. With almost a thousand very highly cited publications, he is one of the most influential social scientists of the 20th century.

Simon was among the founding fathers of several of today's important scientific domains, including artificial intelligence, information processing, decision-making, problem-solving, attention economics, organization theory, complex systems, and computer simulation of scientific discovery. He coined the terms bounded rationality and satisfying, and was the first to analyze the architecture of complexity and to propose a preferential attachment mechanism to explain power law distributions.

He also received many top-level honors later in life. These include: the ACM's Turing Award for making "basic contributions to artificial intelligence, the psychology of human cognition, and several other prestigious awards.

Desiderata

Term used to describe "desired things"

Apple, America, and Jobs

This is a summary of an article posted on the NYTimes.com.

The article starts off with mentioning an interesting question asked by President Obama at a dinner in California last February. President Obama asked Mr. Jobs, "What would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Why can't that work come home?" Mr. Jobs' answer was ambiguous, however through further research, the authors who wrote this article were able to explain why the iPhone isn't made or assembled in the United States.

First reason is that Apple's executives believe the overseas factories are more flexible, and have workers that are willing to work at any time of the day. Almost all 700,000 people, who work as Apple contractors, engineer for foreign companies in Asia, Europe, and other parts of the world.

Chinese factories have been known to handle issues where Apple had redesigned the glass screen for the iPhone at the last minute. The screens arrived late at night; the foreman at the factory immediately asked 8,000 workers who resided in the company's dormitories to start assembling the new screens on the iPhone, so the phones can be delivered for sale. Speed and flexibility is a key attribute that workers in China have that no company or factory in U.S. could ever have.

Growing companies argue that instead of creating jobs for the Americans, the company believes it should be generating profit to keep paying for innovation.

The article mentions Corning Inc, the company in which the glass screens for iPhone are made, received orders from several different major companies asking to build the glass screens for their devices, which in turn, soar the company to making more than $700 million a year. The company hired 1,000 Americans to support the emerging market. However, their main factories are located overseas next to the assembly factories. The company argues that it is cheaper for them to build a factory near the assembly factory, instead of making the glass in the U.S. and shipping it overseas. The cost of shipping via air is expensive, and the cost of shipping via boat takes too long.

Mr. Saragoza was laid off by Apple when new equipment came in that replaced humans. Saragoza faced many hardships finding a reliable job that would support his family. His credentials were too expensive for an unskilled job, but insufficient for a high-level job. After working several jobs, Saragoza was contacted by Mrs. Lin, project manager at PCH International who contracts for Apple, told him that there are a lot of jobs in Shenzhen.

With Apple's great success comes the great payday, today shareholders are receiving a significant amount of money for investing money into Apple. Mr. Cook's salary is $1.4 million. 

Apple's call centers are located in the U.S., so for that demand, many shipping carriers have increased the amount of workers in their company to take on the work supplied by Apple.

At the end of the dinner, Mr. President and Mr. Jobs exchanged a few words about possible solutions to this economic problem. Jobs had a few suggestions. Perhaps the government should allow foreign engineers easy access to U.S. visa. The president should give "tax holiday" which in turn could create work. Jobs suggested if the government helped train American engineering, then it could be possible for Apple products to be built in the U.S. also.

The article ends with an Apple executive presenting a driving game to Mr. Jobs.

Housing Setback Requirements in Knoxville

According to the Knox County Area Regulations, there are many housing setback requirements that involve the area on which a residential property sits.


Area regulations for houses, attached houses, and duplexes are as follow:

• The minimum number of stories in an attached house shall be two. 
• The minimum front yard setback may be extended to 40' for all houses on a block to address such constraints as topography,  utility easements and tree conservation, provided that the concepts and the need for the greater setbacks are set forth in the development plan. 
• Outdoor porches may extend 10' into the front yard space. Porch steps may extend up to an additional 8 feet into the front yard setback.  For privacy, the ground level of attached houses should be at least 18" above sidewalks. 
• Garages shall be located behind houses, attached houses, and duplexes. When access is provided from alleys, there shall be at least 10 feet of separation between the alley pavement and the garage. The garage shall be separated from the residence with a yard or patio area that has a minimum length of 18 feet.
• Residential off-street parking shall be provided as follows: 
• One space for each house or attached house; two spaces for each duplex. 
• One space for each efficiency or one-bedroom unit in an apartment. 
• 1.5 spaces for the first 20 dwelling units of two or more bedrooms in an apartment building and one space for each dwelling unit exceeding 20 units. 
• Other than houses, attached houses,  and duplexes, the number of off-street, surface parking spaces cannot exceed the preceding requirements. All off-street residential parking is  to be located off alleys unless the Planning Commission finds that the extent of existing development or topographic conditions limit such access provisions.

I have spent 7 hours on this assignment.

ABET Definition of Design

According to mem.drexel.edu, engineering design is the process of devising a system, component, or process to meet desired needs. Often the decision making process is iterative. Teams work together and take basic knowledge about science, mathematics, and engineering and apply them to the goal. Some fundamental elements of the design process are the establishment objectives and criteria, synthesis, analysis, construction, testing and evaluation.

The following features are included in the engineering design component:

• Development of student creativity, 
• Use of open ended problems, 
• Development and use of modern design theory and methodology, 
• Formulation of design problem statements and specifications, 
• Consideration of alternative solutions, 
• Feasibility considerations, 
• Production processes, 
• Design verification, and 
• Detailed system descriptions. 

Also when devising a system, or a product, it is essential to keep in mind the constraints of your project, for instance, cost, safety, reliability, ethics, and social impact.

Marshmallow Challenge

In the Marshmallow Challenge, we used several components from the ABET Definition of Design. We definitely used the development of student creativity. My group and I had to construct a stable standing object with using certain items and making sure the marshmallow was at the top of the structure. This challenge was an open-ended problem, there really was no right answer. Every team devised their structure according to their design. I would say we used all of the components except for design verification and detailed system descriptions. We couldn't test our structure because there was a time constraint, so what we had built so far wasn't stable enough to stand up on its own. However, overall, we did use the majority of the components from the ABET Definition of Design.

Paper Clip Challenge
In the Paper Clip Challenge, we used most of the components from the ABET Definition of Design except for the last component, which is the detailed system descriptions. All of us had to creatively think of a way to create the one object that the other team told us to create with paper clips. Again this was an open-ended problem as well, there was no right answer. My partner and I both created a slingshot successfully, obviously using different designs. We considered an alternative way to create a sundial, which was our paper clip product, so we could beat the design of the other team. We verified the design, by making sure the product worked with the specific measurements we had set for the item.

MORE New and Amazing Technologies of 2012

Some headings are linked to a Youtube video.

RollTop

A rollTop is a laptop that can be rolled into a tube to allow the user for easily carry the laptop. The rollTop unrolled the keyboard and monitor, and the tube is the power supply, where one end plugs into the computer and the other into the power source. For more information, visit http://myrolltop.com/.

Wi-Fi USB Cufflinks

These cufflinks have Wi-Fi capabilities and can also be used to store up to 2GB of important files. One wrist can be used as a mobile hotspot, while the other is used for storing vital documents. When using the Wi-Fi cufflink to share your internet connection, the USB Cufflink can be used to share files between two computer. For more information, visit gizmag.com.

Virtual Projection

Virtual Projection leverages the idea of bringing optical projection to digital surfaces, thus making it just as easy to temporarily transfer information from a phone to a larger display. As virtual projections are only simulated, we can overcome some of the restrictions of their real-world inspiration: (1) We can freely adjust distortion and transformation depending on the application's needs. (2) We can fix virtual projections to the display and create multiple ones at the same time. For more information, visit http://do.minik.us/virtual-projection/.

 

Quick 3D Motion-Capture System Developed for Imaging Muscles

This technology allows the user to see important data regarding muscle contraction. The system uses ultrasound imaging, 3D motion-capture technology, and proprietary data-processing software. For more information, visit gizmag.com.

Min H. Kao

Dr. Min H. Kao

The name of the new Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Building on the University of Tennessee's campus is named after the co-founder of Garmin Corporation, Dr. Min H. Kao.

Dr. Min H. Kao graduated with his M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee. This UT Alumni donated $17.5 million to the College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee to construct the new EECS building. Dr. Kao's donation has been the largest private donation to UT.

Just like my fellow classmates and I in Senior Design, Dr. Kao also conjured up an idea and successfully created a design which became the foundation of the original Garmin product line. In the engineering world, design is key in how your idea and product should be developed. Dr. Min Kao is a great role model for all students.

Dr. Kao is credited with the breakthrough design and engineering of the GPS software technology that formed the foundation of the original Garmin product line. Today he directs the business development initiatives and strategic planning for all of Garmin worldwide.

Design of Design: Summary of Chapters 4-5

Chapter 4: Requirements, Sin, and Contracts

A Horror Story

• Talks about a Marine Corp General asking a Computer Designer and his/her group to create a helicopter that could carry weaponry, ammunition, warriors, etc, and still be able to "ferry" itself across the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Designer is horrified by the idea because flying across the Atlantic Ocean is not a helicopter's normal operating range. A helicopter has not yet been built that has the power to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Designer contemplated the idea that perhaps other designers have already come up with a solution to this problem. Maybe other more skilled designers know of a way to build a helicopter that can carry the amount of load necessary, as well as fly across the Atlantic.

Unfortunately, Not Unique

• Talks about who comes up with the requirements for the product, often it is jut a long list of requirements conjured up by architects and engineers who give their opinion based on their experience and instincts.
• In the end, some products turn into total disasters due to a large list of specifications and requirements.
• However, the Project Manager, who is in charge of the product development, often rejects requirements that seem impractical.

Fighting Requirements Bloat and Creep

• Requirement creeps often bombard developers with ideas either made by users or by internal inventors, however, their ideas are rejected with the best defense: scheduled urgency.
• The most effective way to avoid creeps is to appoint capable managers at the very begin of the process who will ensure the product is completed with at least the initial requirements.

Sin

• Suppose:
• Client is happy to pay the developers a fair price for their work.
• He has engaged an architect whose talents and professional skills he is eager to use to help serve the client's true interests.
• Contracting with a builder who does what he is supposed to do within budget, cost and on schedule
• Everyone is honest and truthful, and communication is excellent.
• Then: I would argue that
• A payment arrange will benefit the client and give them the most value per dollar.
• Design-build is the fastest way to get the project done.
• An explicit Spiral Model process will yield the product best suited to the client's needs.
• How can we explain the persistence of the WaterFall Model, when the greater fidelity of the Spiral and Co-Evolutionary models has been seen for more than a quarter century?
• The one-word answer is SIN: PRIDE, GREED, and SLOTH.

Contracts

• Talks about the importance of written agreements to clarify communication.

A Model for Contracting

• Normal Building Design Process:
• Client develops a program for the building.
• He contracts with an architect.
• Architect elicits from the client, users, and other stakeholders a more complete program.
• Architect builds a conceptual design that approximates budgets, reconciliation of program, schedule and code.
• Architect performs design development, often by drawing or models.
• Clients uses drawing to enter into a fixed-price contract for the product.
• Often there are drawbacks. Building projects with
• Close trusted relationships between client, architect and contractor,
• Well-understood design challenges, or
• A pressing hurry, justifying higher risks,
• often hinders the normal process of the design-build process.

Chapter 5: What are Better Design Process Models?

Why a Dominant Model?

• Talks about how models are defined by simplified abstractions of reality. A person could easily argue that a dominant model is a fool's errand because it emphasizes some aspects and omits others.
• The author disagrees saying that the Waterfall Model convinces him that communication is necessary and the nature of academic instruction mean that there will be a dominant model of the design process.

The Co-Evolution Model

• Maher, Poon, and Boulanger proposed a formal model, Co-Evolution Model.
• Model is design has Problem 1 --> Prototype 1 --> Problem 2 --> Prototype 2 -->Problem 3 --> Prototype 3 --> and so on.
• This model emphasizes progressive discovery and formulation of requirements.
• Whirlgig Model
• This proposed model, is complex to understand, much less memorize, and facile use in discussion was used for cycles and epicycles.

Raymond's Bazaar Model

• How It Works
• Creating community sees a need, develops a module to meet it, and offers it to his peers as a gift. This type of module in integrated in the Linux community. It helps facilitate modularity in structure.
• Some people write new modules and fix bugs.
• Strengths
• Raymond argues that the system products produced by this process are technically superior to those produced by the cathedral process.
• When Does the Bazaar Work?
• Evolutionary model which means large system grown by adding components which fulfills a requirement.
• The economy works for people who are being fed, that means the software gifts to the community are by-products of other people's work that produces revenue to pay the builders-donors.
• A key to all design processes is the discovery of the users' needs, wants, and criteria.
• Open Source process can not be used to build a new national air-traffic controls system, which is why a cathedral process is still necessary.

Boehm's Spiral Model

• Model proposed for the building of software.
• Spiral shape suggest progress.
• Denning and Dargan say that the Spiral Model is an improvement, but it is centered around the designer and the product rather than the user and action.
• Brooks believes the way forward is to embrace and develop using this model because this model accommodated the progressive discovery of requirements, but did not emphasize on it or on contracting points.

Design Process Models: The Summary Argument of Chapters 2-5

• A formal design process model is needed to help organize design work, to aid communication in and about projects, and for teaching.
• Having a visual, geometric representation of a design process model is crucial, for designers are spatial thinkers. They will most easily learn, think about, share, and talk in terms of a model with a clear geometric picture.
• The Rational Model of design occurs naturally to engineers. Indeed, it has been independently and formally set forth several times: for example, by Simon, by Pahl and Beitz, and by Royce.
• The linear, step-by-step Rational Model is highly misleading. It does not accurately reflect what real designers do, or what the best design thinkers identify as the essence of the design process.
• The bad model matters. It has led to the too-early binding of requirements, leading in turn to bloated products and schedule/budget/performance disasters.
• The Rational Model has persisted in practice despite its inadequacies and plenty of cogent critiques. This is because of its seductive logical simplicity, and because builders and clients need “contracts.”
• Several alternative process models have been proposed. I find Boehm’s Spiral Model the most promising. We need to keep developing it.

Summary Arguments is copied verbatim from the book, Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

New and Amazing Technologies of 2012

Heading is linked to a Youtube video or an image of the technology.

Senseye

• Senseye is a cool software that allows the user to control/interact their mobile device using eye movements. Just by looking at the phone, the software can detect where your eyes are and how you are moving them, which in turn controls the movement on the screen of your mobile device.
• The image captured by the front-facing camera of the smartphone or tablet is analyzed using computer-vision algorithms. Our software can then determine the location of the eyes and estimate where you're looking on the screen with an accuracy good enough to know which icon you're looking at.

Samsung Flexible AMOLED Display

• Samsung Flexible AMOLED Display is a 3D super-thin, colorful flexible screen. The screen is so flexible that it can be rolled up. The display has even been tested with a hammer, and the display surprisingly survived the impact of the hammer.
• First up, we got to check out the super-thin and surprisingly bright and colorful flexible AMOLED displays. Thanks to a plastic encapsulation method, the flexible AMOLED displays can be rolled up like a newspaper and can even survive impacts with a hammer. Samsung says that they haven’t even begun to explore the possibilities that these types of displays can foster in the near future, but it’s clear that there is some really amazing potential here.
• [IntoMobile.com] also had a chance to check out the transparent AMOLED displays. By replacing some pixels of the display with blank, transparent elements, Samsung has managed to produce displays that offer the power consumption, brightness, color saturation and contrast benefits of AMOLED while allowing you to literally look through the display. Transparent displays compromise resolution, but the effect is amazing.

The Sixth Sense Technology

• According to Wikipedia.com, Sixth Sense is a wearable, gestural interface device created by a Ph.D student at MIT Media lab named Pranav Mistry. The technology can be used to take pictures with your fingers, also enables the user to visualize information onto various surfaces including books. The YouTube video shows a detailed demo of this technology being used by Pranav Mistry.
• The SixthSense prototype comprises a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera contained in a pendant like, wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to a mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks users' hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques.[1] The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tips of the user’s fingers. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. SixthSense supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

360º 3D Holographic Displays

• This technology has been created by the Graphics Lab at the University of Southern California. This low-cost 3D display system provides the user with several different ways of display 3D object in a 3D display.
• The display is:
• autostereoscopic - requires no special viewing glasses
• omnidirectional - generates simultaneous views accommodating large numbers of viewers
• interactive - can update content at 200Hz
• The system works by projecting high-speed video onto a rapidly spinning mirror. As the mirror turns, it reflects a different and accurate image to each potential viewer. Our rendering algorithm can recreate both virtual and real scenes with correct occlusion, horizontal and vertical perspective, and shading.
• While flat electronic displays represent a majority of user experiences, it is important to realize that flat surfaces represent only a small portion of our physical world. Our real world is made of objects, in all their three-dimensional glory. The next generation of displays will begin to represent the physical world around us, but this progression will not succeed unless it is completely invisible to the user: no special glasses, no fuzzy pictures, and no small viewing zones.

Contact Lenses That Change Color to Alert Diabetics of Glucose Levels

• These contact lenses have been created by Professor Jin Zhang from University of Western Ontario. The contact lenses change color according to the glucose levels of a diabetic patient. This technology can save diabetic patients from going through the painful process of drawing blood a few days a day.
• Professor Jin Zhang developed the technology which uses engineered nanoparticles embedded into hydrogel lenses. The nanoparticles are engineered to react with the glucose molecules contained in tears. When sugar levels rise or fall, a chemical reaction causes the lens to change color, allowing the wearer to adjust their glucose accordingly.

cellCONTROL

• CellControl is a technology that stops teenagers/drivers from using their mobile devices while driving. The CellControl device is activated when the vehicle is moving, which prevents the drivers from getting distracted with phone calls or text messages. The driver is able to use his/her phone once the vehicle has come to a stop.
• Important Feature Comparisons

I have spent 2 hours on this assignment.

Design of Design: Summary of Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1: The Design Question
Is Bacon Right?

• Bacon's hypothesis is that if there are properties that are alike across a wide range of media of design, then it must be true that designers in all types of fields can fulfill their desire to learn new things about their design/work by analyzing their own life-situations such as an experience or an insight.

What is Design?

• The definition of design is broken down into three parts according to Brooks.
• Design is:
1. A plan
2. In the mind
3. Execution
• Three Distinct Aspects according to Dorothy Sayers:
• Idea: The formulation of the conceptual constructs
• Energy: Implementation in real media
• Interaction: Interactivity with users in real uses.

What's Real? The Design Concept

• The term "Design Concept" was identified as important by Luck of the University of Reading.
• System/360 Design is used as an example of a "Design Concept"
• The Design Concept for System/360 is broken up into three different activities.
1. Architecture
2. Implementation
3. Realization

What's the Value?

1. Designers who recognized the Design Concept as an object that exists could easily help them seek the integrity in their own individual design. It taught them to work together as a team to achieve the goal and focus on it. This allowed many designers to understand that this quality is essential and needs to be taught to their youth.
2. Communication is key in a Design Concept
3. Decimal datatype is used as an example.

Thinking about the Design Process

• This section talks mainly about the long history of designs and refers back to several different historic architectures.
• One example used was Vitruvius.

Kinds of Design

• System Design versus Artistic Design
• Talks about the contrasts between designs done by artists and writers, who focus mainly on delight and conveying a meaning to its readers, or through their design.
• Architects and industrial designers fall into both categories.
• Routine, Adaptive, Original Design
• Talks about the emphasis on Original Design in this book versus routine redesign of objects or adaptive design, which just means that a design/object is modified to serve a new purpose or to take care of another need.

Chapter 2: How Engineers Think of Design - The Rational Model
The Model

• Goal
• Primary Goal: "One wants to build a beach house to take advantage of wind and wave at an oceanfront lot."
• Desiderata
• Secondary Objectives: "The beach house should be reinforced to withstand hurricane-force winds; it should sleep and seat at table at least 14 people; it should exploit the stunning views;"
• Utility Function
• Optimizing design to provide some goodness function that weighs the several secondary objectives as to their importances.
• Constraints
• Setbacks that don't allow you to reach your goal as easily.
• Resource Allocations, Budgets, and Crucial Budgets
• Constraints can be caused because of fixed resources.
• Most common fixed resource constraint is total cost budget.
• Design Trees
• Building a design tree according to the design decisions made by the designer.
• At each node in the tree, designers can add one or more paths, so the designer can think of the design process as a systematic exploration of the design space.

Whence Formulations of this Model?

• Formulations of a model should take place as a step-by-step systematic process.
• This technique was developed by the German mechanical engineering community.
• Simon argues that design should be formulated as a search process.
• Royce introduced the seven-step Waterfall Model to bring order to the process.

What's Right with this Model?

• Provides clear steps for planning a design project.
• Sets clearly defined milestones in the design schedule and for judging progress.
• Project organization and staffing are suggested.
• Communication is key among all team members.
• The Rational Model brings more advantages.
• Early statements of goals, secondary desiderata, and constraints to help the design team avoid leaving focus from the goal.
• Casting process as a systematic search of a design space which broadens the horizon of the designers.
• This model is much too simplistic.

Chapter 3: What's Wrong with this Model?
We Don't Really Know the Goal When We Start

• Talks about how most designers don't have a clear set goal, instead most of the time the designer is often vague.
• Gives an example about a student working in a missile company where the student realized he was providing the designer a useful service by helping the client decide what he really wanted.
• Goal iteration must be considered a basic part of the design process.

We Usually Don’t Know the Design Tree - We Discover It as We Go

• Designers discover what they want and the design tree as they work by making important decisions and sometimes seeing alternative steps that can be taken to accomplish their goal.
• Each major design effort has enough novelty in the
• Goal
• Desiderata, and the utility function
• Constraints
• Available fabrication technologies

The Nodes Are Really Not Design Decisions, but Tentative Complete Designs

• At each node in the tree, designers face not a simple alternative choice amount options of one design decision, but an alternative choice among multiple tentative complete designs.
• The explosive combinatorics of these complications to the tree model boggle the mind.

The Goodness Function Cannot Be Evaluated Incrementally

• Experience
• Intuition helps aid designers in this process.
• Example of the designers of OS/360.
• Simple Estimators
• Computer architect use instruction mixes to do rough-cut early estimates of computer performance.
• A danger is that the rough estimator may not work with the design branches of the very approximation involved in the estimator.

The Desiderata and Their Weightings Keep Changing

• For designs that must be separately fabricated, designers learn from the builders a growing understand of the interactions between design and fabrication. So many desiderata and constraints shift and refine.

The Constraints Keep Changing

• Even if the goal is fixed, constraints will keep changing even if the design process has been set, and branched off into systematic approaches.
• Designers have to work around the constraints, a process that calls forth much invention and exploration of unconventional corners of a design space.

Others’ Critiques of the Rational Model

• A Natural Model
• The Rational Model as presented may seem a bit naive. However this model is a very natural model for people to understand.
• Designers Just Don’t Work That Way
• Most designers don't use the Rational Model; the hardest to prove is that most designers just can't work with the Rational Model.
• Royce's Critique of the Waterfall Model
• Royce describes the Waterfall model so that he can point of its deficiencies.
• He argues that even with back-arrows describing counterflow between adjacent boxes in the waterfall, the model doesn't work.
• 
  

  Schon's Summary of the Critiques
• A excerpt of his critiques.

But Despite All These Flaws and Critiques, the Rational Model Persists!

• Verein Deutscher Ingenieure Standard VDI-2221
• Adopted the Rational Model as an official standard for German mechanical engineering.
• DoD Standard 2167A
• Talks about the U.S. Dept of Defense enshrined the Waterfall Model.

So What? Does Our Design Process Model Matter?

• Not Every Design Thinker Agrees with Me
• Professor Ken Wallace of Cambridge believes the best way to take major steps forward is to build some kind of model that is readily understood and communication.
• Suzanne and James Robertson say that the deficiencies in the Rational Model don't really matter. "People who understand what design is, know better."
• Right-Brained Designers.
• Designers are often right-brained people, visually and spatially oriented.
• Software design groups invariably scrawl diagrams, not words or code, on their shared whiteboards.
• A more realistic process model would make design work more efficient, restraining many arguments with clients and much rework.

I have spent 9 hours on Assignment 2.

Summary of H.R. 2930 -- Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act

H.R. 2930 -- Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act



The bill amends the Securities Act of 1933, by agreeing to let entrepreneurs use crowdfunding online, but only allows up to $2 million a year in total accumulated raised money to be directly taken from individuals. Once it has exceeded the $2 million limit, entrepreneurs have to register the individual who has invested in their cause/business with the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)


Even if less than $2 million is raised, the fundraising completion must be filed with the SEC. This is not supposed to be free money, so to make sure, there is no ill use of the money raised, entrepreneurs are to provide investors with financial statements to quality for the $2 million cap, otherwise, he/she is capped at $1 million. Individual investments are capped at $10,000 or 10% of their income, depending on which amount is less.


H.R. 2930 specifically amends the “Requirements with Respect to Certain Small Transactions” (Section 4A of the Securities Act), by allowing entrepreneurs to not have to go through registration with the SEC for certain crowdfunded securities.


A few important details:

• Background checks are required.
• Funds acquired through online fundraising cannot be resold for a year, unless the shareholder is a prestigious entrepreneur or broker.
• The funding caps can be changed since the caps are issued by the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers, 
• Entrepreneur and broker must have some sort of 3rd party cash management system to avoid dealing with money themselves and using it for ill purposes.
• Entrepreneur and broker must raise at least 60% of their goal amount to receive possession of the funds, this way entrepreneurs do not collect money for a project they cannot afford to finish.

Fundraising Online Using Social Media and/or Internet Tools

How to Raise Funds Using Social Media and/or Internet Tools

1. One great way of raising funds online is through sites like, piryx.com, give2gether.com, fundly.com, rally.org, givezooks.com, etc.
• By using Piryx's online fundraising platform, you can raise money online for your charity, non-profit, politic, school, church, group, club, corporate giving program, team, or any cause, much easier than ever before! Every year millions of people worldwide donate money to a number of causes, which total in the many billions of dollars. Today, there are thousands of causes that rely on Piryx's online fundraising platform to raise money more effectively.
• When technology meets a great cause- good things happen.  We at give2gether realized that we could leverage the latest web capabilities for doing good - for community building and cost-effective fundraising powered by Social Media.
• Fundly has rapidly become the largest online social fundraising platform in the United States.  Individuals and organizations raising funds for non-profits, charities, politics, schools, clubs, teams, groups, and others, have raised over $230 million using Fundly's social fundraising platform.
2. Social networking applications like Causes, which is linked via Facebook can be used to raise money online.
• According to economist.com, these sites and platforms let users connect with charities and each other, plan events, donate directly or create projects to fund-raise among friends. On Causes, for example, participants can use a birthday to rally friends to give to a particular charity.
3. There are many other various of using social media and internet tools to raise money.
• Compukol.com lists several different ways of raising money through social media channels.

Legal Problems Arising From Websites for Crowd-funding

According to practicalecommerce.com, equity crowd-funding is illegal in the United States. In "Need Funding for Your Company? Look Online," [the author] mentioned that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission considers crowdfunding to be a sale of securities, which would require that the crowdfunding website owners be registered as brokers. One site, MicroVentures, is a registered broker. Two others sites, GrowVC and SeedUps, have headquarters outside the United States, making them exempt from U.S. law. Other sites are in a gray area, saying that they only provide a meeting place for entrepreneurs and equity funders.

One prominent crowdfunder, California-based ProFounder, was recently forced to cease operations by state authorities. "They were acting as a broker without being licensed as a broker dealer," stated Preston DuFauchard, the commissioner for the California Department of Corporations. In August, the state agency issued a formal consent order to ProFounder to "desist and refrain" from engaging in securities transactions without registering as a broker dealer. Other states may not be as diligent as California, but all crowdfunding sites with an equity model are subject to SEC enforcement. ProFounder is now actively lobbying for changes to the securities law.

New Crowd-funding Legislation

Many observers believe that equity crowdfunding is a good way to help entrepreneurs and small businesses start and grow. But crowdfunding sites maintain that high costs and burdensome compliance requirements are deterrents to becoming licensed brokers. For example, the sites must not only register with the Securities and Exchange Commission through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, but also in every state where they plan to do business.

Downside to Equity Crowd-funding

While crowd-funding would provide another source of equity funding for small businesses, there are several potential drawbacks for entrepreneurs. Unlike contributions to one-off projects in which donors have no say in implementation, equity investors want, and are entitled to, some influence in the direction a business takes. Having hundreds of equity investors means you will be answering to hundreds of bosses. That's time-consuming and costly to administer.

According to cashtostart.com, here is a list of the top 10 crowdfunding websites:

1. Profounder.com
• A professional crowdfunding website for equity and revenue share.
2. StartupAddict.com
• Crowdfunding for startup addicts.
3. BelieversFund.com
• Crowdfunding website for new mobile applications.
4. Rockethub.com
• A leading crowdfunding website for creative projects.
5. Quirky.com
• A crowdfunding website for inventors.
6. NewJelly.com
• A crowdfunding website for artists.
7. CoFolio.com
• A crowdfunding website to help fund local small businesses.
8. KickStarter.com
• A crowdfunding website for creative projects.
9. StartSomeGood.com
• A crowdfunding website for social entrepreneurs.
10. Peerbackers.com
• A crowdfunding website for entrepreneurs and their dreams.
11. Eppela.com
• A crowdfunding website for social projects, art and entertainment, as well as lifestyle and technology businesses.
12. IndieGoGo.com
• The world's largest and earliest crowdfunding website, which has helped raise million of dollars over 30,000 campaigns, across 194 countries.

According to socialbrite.org, here at their top 5 social fundraising tools:

1. Give2gether.com
2. Razoo.com
3. Rally.org
4. Givezook.com
5. Fundly.com

Depending on the cause, in a week, I think I can raise a minimum of $200, and probably a maximum of $500. In a month, I think I can raise around $1000 to $1500.

Corporation VS. LLC

Definition of a Corporation
Buzzle.com defines A corporation as a legal entity which is independent of the legal entities of its owners, shareholders or the management personnel running it.


Advantages of a Corporation
According to form-a-corp.com, the most important advantage of incorporation is that it gives its stockholders limited liability. Since the corporation is a separate legal entity, its stockholders are protected from the debts and liabilities of the corporation.

Other advantages:

• A corporation has unlimited life. If an owner dies or sells his interest the corporation will continue to exist and do business.
• Ability to easily establish insurance and retirement plans.
• Ownership of corporation is easily sold or transferred through sale or transfer of stock.
• Capital can be raised through sale of stock.
• A corporation has centralized management which may remain in place after sale of business.

Disadvantages of a Corporation
According to form-a-corp.com, the primary disadvantage to incorporation is the possibility of double taxation. The profits of a corporation are taxed first as income to the corporation, then second as income to the shareholder. However, all reasonable business expenses such as salaries and other operating expenses are deductions against corporate income which can minimize double taxation. Double taxation can be eliminated by making an S Corporation election. S Corporations only pay taxes one time at the tax rate of the shareholder(s). S Corporations can deduct the same expenses as a C corporation.

• Complexity and expense of forming a corporation.
• Legal formalities involved with a corporation.

How to Create a Corporation in the State of TN?

According to ehow.com, to form a Tennessee corporation, you must file paperwork with the Tennessee department of state. Once the agency approves the documents, the business will be treated as a distinct legal entity with a life separate from the company owners. Forming a corporation in Tennessee protects the personal assets of the company's owners from the debts and obligations that may occur while running the business.

1. Verify the availability of your business name. It must be distinguishable from other business entities registered with the Tennessee department of state. Confirm availability via the Tennessee department of state website. Add a corporate identifier to the company's legal name such as "corporation," "company," "incorporated" or the appropriate abbreviation.
2. Assign directors. The director of a Tennessee corporation is not required to live in the state or be of a certain age. A company shareholder may act as a director of the business. At least one person must be named to the Tennessee corporation's board of directors.
3. Prepare the Tennessee charter. Tennessee corporations may complete the company's charter online or print a fill-in-the-blank version using the Tennessee department of state website. Call the Tennessee department of state at 615-741-2286 to have a fill-in-the-blank charter sent via mail. Provide information about the company such as the name and address of the person who will accept the Tennessee corporation's legal documents. List the name and address of each incorporator responsible for filing the company's charter with the Tennessee department of state. Indicate the number of shares the company will have the authority to issue. State either the date when the corporation will dissolve or that the company will have an unlimited existence.
4. Submit the charter to the Tennessee department of state. You can do it through the Tennessee department of state website, via mail or in person at the Tennessee department of state's office at 312 Rosa L. Parks Ave., Snodgrass Tower, 6th Floor; Nashville, TN 37243. As of 2010, it cost a corporation $100 to file its charter. Do so with the register of deeds in the Tennessee county where the corporation is located.
5. Compose bylaws to establish rules and procedures for running the business. The state of Tennessee does not impose specific requirements on the contents of a Tennessee corporation's bylaws. Include provisions such as the time and place of company meetings, procedures for electing new directors and indicate the responsibilities of company officers. You should keep the bylaws at the Tennessee corporation's principal office.
6. Hold an organizational meeting. Adopt the company's bylaws, which officially make it the Tennessee corporation's governing document. Issue stock certificates to initial shareholders. Directors must set the compensation for each share of company stock. The initial shareholders may provide services, cash and property in exchange for ownership interest in the business.

How to Dissolve a Corporation in the State of TN?
According to northwestregisterdagent.com using resources from tn.gov, the forms and process you will use to dissolve/terminate your Tennessee Corporation are different depending on the circumstances. A Tennessee corporation can be voluntarily dissolved before or after it has started to conduct business. And it can be involuntarily dissolved by the Department of State. You would use a different form for each situation.  The DBS forms are in your online account when you sign up for registered agent service and are available on the DBS website. You are not required to use the Division of Business Services’ dissolution and termination forms; you may choose to draft your own articles of dissolution or termination.


By Incorporators:
If your corporation has not commenced business or not issued shares, all you have to do is file SS-4423 Articles of Dissolution and Termination by Incorporators or Directors.


By Shareholders:
Tennessee Department of State, Division of Business Services requires corporations to first dissolve, then terminate.  When the articles of dissolution have been filed, the corporation still exists but can only wind up its business. Once business is concluded, the corporation has to file articles of termination. If business has been concluded, you could file the articles of dissolution and termination with DBS at the same time.

1. You will file SS-4255, Written Consent to Dissolution and SS-4410, Articles of Dissolution.
2. Then you file SS-4256, Written Consent to Termination and SS-4412, Articles of Termination of Corporate Existence
3. After administrative dissolution:
• If your Tennessee corporation has been administratively terminated and you do not want to reinstate, then you file SS-4414, Articles of Termination following Administrative Dissolution or Revocation
4. You will submit the original dissolution and termination documents by mail or in person to the Department of State, Division of Business Services. DBS accepts checks, cashier’s checks, money orders etc., payable to the “Tennessee Secretary of State.

          Department of State
          Division of Business Services
          312 Rosa L. Parks Avenue
          Snodgrass Tower, 6th Floor
          Nashville, TN 37243
          615-741-2286

• There is no fee for filing written consent to dissolution or termination
• Articles of Dissolution: $20.00
• Articles of Termination: $20.00
• Articles of Termination following Administrative Dissolution: $100.00
• You do not have to get the tax clearance from the Department of Revenue before you file the articles of dissolution or termination for your Tennessee corporation.  The Division of Business Services will request a tax clearance for your corporation when you file the articles. If you have any outstanding tax debt, your articles will be rejected.
• If you mail your dissolution documents, they are processed in 3-5 business days.
• If you deliver documents in person DBS will process them while you wait.
• Tennessee DBS does not offer expedited processing.
• Getting tax clearance from the Department of Revenue can add time to processing if you have unpaid taxes.
• As soon as you file your Articles of Termination with DBS, your corporate name is up for grabs by other businesses.  
• Tennessee requires that each corporation deliver an annual report to the Department of State, Division of Business Services. A $20.00 filing fee must be submitted with the corporations annual report.  If you don’t file both, the DBS will send you a delinquency notice.  If you do not file within sixty days of that notice, your corporation will be administratively dissolved.

Estimated Costs to Create and Dissolve a Corporation
According to form-a-corp.com, below is a breakdown of the costs required to create a corporation.

• Complete Package ($299.99)
• Form-A-Corp Fees
• Expedited State Filing Service
• Corporation Kit with Seal
• Prepare IRS Form SS-4 (Employer Identification Form)
• Forms on Disk
• Express Next-Day Service
• Tennessee state filing fees ($100.00)
• Total Cost ($399.99)
• Additional fees may be needed if you wish to acquire a Tax ID (EIN) or need to prepare S-Corporation election Form 2553.

According to northwestregisterdagent.com using resources from tn.gov, from the forms listed above in the steps for dissolving a corporation, the estimated cost for dissolving a corporation is approximately $140, which only includes application fees.


Links to Online Forms Required for these Processes

According to the state of TN, you must fill out the forms listed under the appropriate type of corporation you wish to form in order to create that corporation.

Definition of a LLC (Limited Liability Company)
According to legalzoom.com, an LLC is a business entity created under state law that can shield you from personal liability. LLCs are becoming the most popular way to start a business due to their ease and flexibility.


Advantages of a LLC
According to limitedliabilitycompanycenter.com, a limited liability company (LLC) has many advantages as a form of business entity:

• Pass-through taxation - under the default tax classification, profits taxed at the member level, not at the LLC level (i.e., no double taxation).
• Limited liability - the owners of the LLC, called "members," are protected from liability for acts and debts of the LLC.
• With "check-the-box" taxation, an LLC can elect to be taxed as a sole proprietor, partnership, S-corp or corporation, providing much flexibility.
• Can be set up with just one natural person involved or, in some states, one owner which may be an entity itself.
• No requirement of an annual general meeting for shareholders (in some states, such as Tennessee and Minnesota, this statement is not correct).
• No loss of power to a board of directors (although an operating agreement may provide for centralization of management power in a board or similar body).
• LLCs are enduring legal business entities, with lives that extend beyond the illness or even death of their owners, thus avoiding problematic business termination or sole proprietor death.
• Much less administrative paperwork and record-keeping.
• Membership interests of LLCs can be assigned, and the economic benefits of those interests can be separated and assigned, providing the assignee with the economic benefits of distributions of profits/losses (like a partnership), without transferring the title to the membership interest (e.g., see Virginia and Delaware LLC Acts).

Disadvantages of a LLC
According to limitedliabilitycompanycenter.com, while a limited liability company (LLC) offers many advantages over other forms of business entity, there are also some disadvantages. Some of the drawbacks to selecting an LLC over another entity are:

• Earnings of most members of an LLC are generally subject to self-employment tax. By contrast, earnings of an S corporation, after paying a reasonable salary to the shareholders working in the business, can be passed through as distributions of profits and are not subject to self-employment taxes.
• Since an LLC is considered a partnership for Federal income tax purposes, if 50% or more of the capital and profit interests are sold or exchanged within a 12-month period, the LLC will terminate for federal tax purposes.
• If more than 35% of losses can be allocated to non-managers, the limited liability company may lose its ability to use the cash method of accounting.
• A limited liability company which is treated as a partnership cannot take advantage of incentive stock options, engage in tax-free reorganizations, or issue Section 1244 stock.
• There is a lack of uniformity among limited liability company statutes. Businesses that operate in more than one state may not receive consistent treatment.
• In order to be treated as a partnership, an LLC must have at least two members. An S corporation can have one shareholder. Although all states allow single member LLCs, the business is not permitted to elect partnership classification for federal tax purposes. The business files Schedule C as a sole proprietor unless it elects to file as a corporation.
• Some states do not tax partnerships but do tax limited liability companies.
• Minority discounts for estate planning purposes may be lower in a limited liability company than a corporation. Since LLCs are easier to dissolve, there is greater access to the business assets. Some experts believe that limited liability company discounts may only be 15% compared to 25% to 40% for a closely-held corporation.
• Conversion of an existing business to limited liability company status could result in tax recognition on appreciated assets.

How to Create a LLC in the State of TN?
According to ehow.com, an LLC, or limited liability company limits the liability of the owners. This type of business makes most sense for the small time business owner who has invested hard work into the business but doesn't want personal assets to be liable should the business incur bad debts or fail. A limited liability company can comprise one person or several members and can include nonprofit organizations.

1. Choose a name for the company and see if it is available in the state of Tennessee.
2. Visit the State of Tennessee's Department of State Corporate Filing Office online or in person to obtain Form 4270.
3. Fill out Form 4270. It asks the name of the company, the address and, if it has more than one member, how the company will be managed. Be prepared to fill out this information as well as decide if it should be effective immediately or at a later date. Tennessee will allow you to file up to three months in advance.
4. Submit the form and filing fee to the State of Tennessee Division of Business Services. As of 2010, the minimum filing fee is $300. Each additional member after six members will cost $50 up to a maximum of $3,000.

How to Dissolve a LLC in the State of TN?
According to northwestregisterdagent.com using resources from tn.gov, the forms and process to dissolve/terminate your Tennessee LLC are different depending on the situation. The LLC dissolution and termination forms are in your online account when you sign up for registered agent service and are available on the DBS website. You are not required to use the Division of Business Services’ dissolution and termination forms; you may choose to draft your own articles of dissolution or termination.

1. If your LLC has not accepted contributions, form SS-4244, Articles of Termination by the Organizers is to terminate a Tennessee LLC that has not yet accepted contributions. This type of termination does not require that you file a Notice of Dissolution.
2. If your LLC has accepted contributions, the first step in terminating a Tennessee LLC is to file Form SS-4246, Notice of Dissolution (Limited Liability Company) with the Department of State, Division of Business Services (DBS). 
3. After you file notice of dissolution and wind up your business, you will have to file the appropriate Articles of Termination.
• Form SS-4245, Articles of Termination is for terminating a Tennessee LLC that has accepted contributions.
• Form 4243, Articles of Termination Following Administrative Dissolution is for LLCs that have been administratively dissolved by DBS. After dissolution, your Tennessee LLC still exists. If you do not wish to reinstate, then you file Articles of Termination.
4. You can submit your original articles to DBS by mail or in person. Include a check, cashier’s check, money order, etc., payable to the “Tennessee Secretary of State” for filing fees.

          Department of State
          Division of Business Services
          312 Rosa L. Parks Avenue
          Snodgrass Tower, 6th Floor
          Nashville, TN 37243
          615-741-2286

• The filing fee to dissolve or cancel a Tennessee LLC.
• Notice of Dissolution: $20.00
• Articles of Termination: $20.00
• Articles of Termination by Organizers: $20.00
• Articles of Termination Following Administrative Dissolution: $100.00
• You will not need to get tax clearance from the Tennessee Department of Revenue before you are able to dissolve and terminate your Tennessee LLC.
• If you mail your dissolution documents, they are processed in 3-5 business days.
• If you deliver documents in person DBS will process them while you wait.
• Tennessee DBS does not offer expedited processing.
• A Tennessee LLC will lose its name protection immediately upon filing the articles of termination.
• A Tennessee LLC that has been administratively dissolved also automatically loses its name.
• You can revoke dissolution any time before you have filed the Articles of Termination. You just file Articles of Revocation of Dissolution.  There is a $20.00 filing fee.
• Tennessee requires that domestic LLCs file an annual report. If you don’t file your annual report on the due date, DBS will send a notice to the business, warning it that it could be revoked.
• After it is served with notice that DBS has grounds for revocation, the LLC has two months to file the report. If your company does not file the annual report, it is administratively revoked by the Division of Business Services.
• If your Tennessee LLC is involuntarily terminated, you must file Form 4240, Application for Reinstatement Following Administrative Dissolution/Revocation (LLC) in order to continue the LLC. The filing fee for the application is $70.00.
• You will also have to file any past due annual reports and pay the fees. The Tennessee LLC annual report fee is $50.00 per member and there is a $300.00 minimum fee.

Estimated Costs to Create and Dissolve a LLC
According to form-a-corp.com, below is a breakdown of the costs required to create a LLC.

• Complete Package ($299.99)
• Form-A-Corp Fees
• Expedited State Filing Service
• LLC Kit with Seal
• Prepare IRS Form SS-4 (Employer Identification Form)
• Forms on Disk
• Express Next-Day Service
• Tennessee state filing fees ($300.00)
• Total Cost ($599.99)

According to northwestregisterdagent.com using resources from tn.gov, from the forms listed above in the steps for dissolving a LLC, the estimated cost for dissolving a LLC is approximately $160, which only includes application fees.


Links to Online Forms Required for these Processes
According to the state of TN, you must fill out the forms listed under the "Forms for Limited Liability Companies" to create a LLC.