Educating the future designers of "intelligent" products

Educating the future designers of "intelligent" product

Science informed design: involving the physical and natural sciences

Eminent designers and engineers have historically been cited as inspirational polymaths with the ability to utilize a wide range of information to form a rational idea and create a concept. If educators are ever to encourage students of Design to emulate such skills then nurturing the growth of philomathic attitudes is essential. Part of that process is developing the ability to draw together observations from a far broader range of disciplines than those currently and commonly drawn upon in most design curricula, and integrating these into common practice. Biomimetics offers many opportunities in design to broaden scientific inquiry. Such approaches currently lack formality as a design methodology and are consequently relatively scarce in application, but successful outcomes tend to capture student imagination. As such, biomimetics can provide an inspirational and highly educational direction for students to take and therefore has the scope to be a powerful learning mechanism. This paper illustrates directions taken by design students of Product Design and Technology (BSc) and Industrial Design and Technology (BA). The interdisciplinary methods of studying, replicating and harnessing natural phenomena for design education and design practice demonstrates the potential as an avenue for learning that students considered inaccessible or even irrelevant. Above all it adds to the debate of designer skill sets and the need to bridge the current gulf between design practice and science

Back to the drawing board?

This paper reports on the results of a survey conducted within the Department of Design and Technology, Loughborough University, UK, in response to increasing concern over the quality and effective use of 2D modelling by design undergraduates at all levels. A survey, in the form of a questionnaire supported by ongoing tutorials, was conducted in an attempt to establish the underlying reasons why there was a perceived drop in manual drawing standards. Focusing on the use of manual draughting skills and formal engineering drawing, the survey includes a summary of academic backgrounds, experiences of 2D modelling in secondary education, student perceptions of the use of CAD and the importance of manual drawing skills, and the aspirations of students when embarking on tertiary education. The majority of the student entry for the Industrial Design and Technology programmes for the academic year 2001-2002 took part in the survey, numbering 120 students

Developing novel explanatory models for electronics education

This paper explores how representations of technological concepts may be designed to help students with visual learning styles achieve successful comprehension in the field of electronics. The work accepts a wide definition of what is understood by the visualisation of a model in that it can take different external forms, but also include an internal representation in a person’s mind. We are of the opinion that to acquire scientific or technological knowledge there is a requirement for abstract models to exhibit particular features that complement the nature of their fields, and that their effectiveness is dependent on the context in question. This work reports on the development of experimental materials which are novel teaching aids in the context of electronics education. It proposes design principles based on congruent, schematised, symmetrical spatial metaphors of circuits incorporating interactivity by the use of gesture, scaffolding, learning by topological, analogical and conceptual resemblances. We conclude that qualitative methods may be employed with a significant measure of success even for a field such as electronics that is often considered to be difficult due to the necessity of abstract explanations

Observation of impact energy absorption performance on idealised trabecular forms in laser sintered nylon

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate whether the trabecular architecture found in natural bone can be effectively replicated through the selective laser sintering process of Nylon P2200. Design/methodology/approach - Trabecular bone was idealised into a scaled up hexagonal cell proven to replicate the natural structure. The structure was modelled in Solidworks 2013 to form a network of interlinking cells. The specific property analysed was the structure toughness through the measurement of the energy absorbed before sample fracture. Findings - It was found that the impact absorption can be increased with the integration of a greater number of trabecular cells producing a finer resolution and not necessarily by increasing the trabecular size. The information gained from this research may be useful in the design of impact and shock absorbing components, with an emphasis on efficient use of material mass. Research limitations/implications - Designers and engineers may find biomimetic methods of absorbing shock and impact an efficient alternative consideration in design applications. Practical implications - The trabecular architecture should be designed so as to be weaker than the bounding surfaces, ensuring that the individual trabecular experience failure first, maximising their energy absorbing capability through increasing the period of deceleration. The simplest way of doing this is to ensure the rod thickness is less than the bounding material thickness. Originality/value - This work documents original testing of both the RP material and consolidated design of samples of idealised bone structures. It builds on previous work in the area and through the results of empirical testing, derives recommendations for further considerations in this area of design and manufacture of biomimetic structures

The designer and the scientist: The road to inspire transdisciplinary synergies

It is essential for the contemporary design practitioner to meet the complex challenges that define modern knowledge-based economies. Within both the professional and educational context, being effective requires broad analytical skills and an adaptive attitude to learning. Developing such knowledge to include a deeper understanding of science, technology, and society, and how the interplay of these domains influences culture and politics, has become crucial. Transdisciplinary engagement relies on the ability to draw together observations from a broader range of subject matter than currently employed in the core of most design curricula. Within a design educational context this is often assimilated through a problem-solving approach to learning, but at practitioner level it is often a far less systematic route to take. The case study presented here illustrates that Designers would benefit from learning about creative forms of practice-based participatory action as a prerequisite to engaging in transdisciplinary collaborative projects. This paper provides an insight into funded research that entailed a designer establishing a synergistic relationship with a natural science institution. The work reports on the transdisciplinary collaboration and the interventions of design thinking within a standardized cycle of scientific enquiry that supported the pursuit of plant science research. The outcome provided artefacts for public engagement and the representation of future scenarios for botanical concepts as a way to obtain mutual benefits for the designer, the scientific partners and the social demographic audience

Performance based abstraction of biomimicry design principles using prototyping

A key challenge faced by biomimicry practitioners is making the conceptual leap between biology and design, particularly regarding collaborating across these knowledge domains and developing and evaluating design principles abstracted from biology. While many tools and resources to support biomimicry design exist, most largely rely on semantic techniques supporting analogical translation of information between biology and design. However, the challenges of evaluation and collaboration are common in design practice and frequently addressed through prototyping. This study explores the utility of prototyping in the unique context of biomimicry by investigating its impact on the abstraction and transfer of design principles derived from biology as well as on cross-domain collaboration between biologists and designers. Following a survey exploring current practices of practitioners, in depth interviews provided detailed accounts of project experiences that leveraged prototyping. Four primary themes were observed: (1) Approximation; (2) The Prototyping Principle; (3) Synthesis and Testing; and (4) Validation. These themes introduce a unique abstraction and transfer process based on form-finding and collaborative performance evaluation in contrast to the widely accepted semantic language-based approaches. Our findings illustrate how designers and engineers can leverage a prototyping skillset in order to develop boundary objects between the fields of biology and design to navigate challenges uniquely associated with the biomimicry approach

Multispecies design and ethnographic practice: Following other-than-humans as a mode of exploring environmental issues

Since the early 1980s, the concept of sustainability has been employed by designers to confront the problems deriving from the emergence of the environmental crisis. On the one hand, if this contributed to generating systemic design approaches and methods to mitigate the human impact on the planet, little has been done to explore sustainability as a concept that extends beyond anthropocentrism. Examining environmental issues by considering other-than-human viewpoints could introduce alternative scenarios compared to those envisioned through technocentric means. This work considers a speculative design project that provides a multispecies reading of the notion of environmental contamination through the engagement of human and vegetal perspectives. The considered methodology focusses on the transdisciplinary tactic of “following” plant collectives across the multiple sites and actors that populate their life. Building on post-humanism theories and Guattari’s concept of “ecosophy”, this paper entails that sustainability should be seen not just as the outcome of a design process, but also as a behavioural attitude, and design as an implementation of that attitude. It is argued that following other-than-humans can teach designers to think sustainably by cultivating relations of reciprocity that help to shed light on the multispecies landscapes of the Anthropocene

Transdisciplinary design practices in education: A complex search for innovation in nature

Working across, between or even beyond established disciplines necessitates effective collaboration, and there are well acknowledged models of associating business and science. Evidence suggests a worldwide increase of cross-disciplinary working as partnerships transcend the confines of predefined and historical silos. However, associations between design, engineering and many branches of life science, lags. While there is increasing interest in bioinspired design, formalised methods are not, as yet, well established, adopted in industry or part of design curricula. Biomimicry as a route to innovation is currently thought to rely on the collaboration between the diverse disciplines of Biology, Design and Engineering in order to be successful. However, current academic research into multidisciplinary collaboration within Engineering and Product Design education appears limited. This study describes the findings of a small-scale research project exploring the attitudes of professionals in relevant fields regarding interdisciplinary collaboration with a specific focus on biomimicry. The work compares current views on collaborative work in biomimicry with the opinions of an expert panel. Two rounds of questionnaires utilising the Delphi method were used to gain insights from an anonymised panel of experts. The research concluded that while biologist/designer collaboration can spark imagination and enthusiasm, it is a challenging process and its efficacy will depend upon understanding and motivation from the onset. The discussion and conclusions focus on the need for more efficient methods to encourage successful collaboration across life sciences and the impact on design education at HE and beyond. Importantly it draws attention to possible attitudes of indifference towards inter and transdisciplinary partnerships

Insights on how metacognition influences knowledge application in product design education

Insights on how metacognition influences knowledge application in product design educatio