The design thinking approaches of three different groups of designers based on self-reports

This paper compares the design thinking approaches of three groups of student-designers: industrial design and architecture undergraduates, and design PhD candidates. Participants responded to an open-ended design brief, working individually. Upon submission of their designs they were debriefed about their design processes. We compare the groups based on their submissions and self-reported design activities, especially the sequence of their design activities and the time allotted to them. There were some commonalities and differences between the two undergraduate groups but the main differences were between the two undergraduates and the PhD students. On the basis of the findings we pose questions regarding design methods in the era of 'design thinking' wherein designers are required to adopt an entrepreneurial frame of mind

Tom Kilburn: A Tale of Five Computers

One of the preeminent figures in the early history of computer design was Tom Kilburn. Over the course of some 30 years, he made significant contributions to the development of five historically significant computers. Although a natural team leader possessed of a somewhat dominating personality, who inspired in those who worked closely with him great loyalty and affection, Kilburn was, on casual acquaintance, a self-contained man who chose his words with care. Tom Kilburn was born August 11, 1921, in West Yorkshire, England. His father, John William Kilburn, was a statistical clerk who rose to become a company secretary.13Tom had a somewhat specialized education at Wheelwright Grammar School having been permitted by his headmaster to study almost nothing else from around the age of 14. It was hardly surprising therefore he emerged from school as something of a mathematical specialist. In 1940, Kilburn went Sidney Sussex College, in Cambridge, with several scholarships. Wartime courses at Cambridge were somewhat truncated and in 1942, Kilburn graduated with First Class Honors in Part I of the Mathematical Tripos and in the preliminary examination for Part II

Lumental : web-based tunable lighting control

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-77).Dynamically adjusting the light spectrum of spectrum-tunable light fixtures promises significant energy savings over binary or incremental dimming control. To enable this level of controllability, lighting must evolve from traditional physical interfaces towards autonomous systems that rely on behavior recognition. Lumental is a system design proposal and preliminary implementation of web-based lighting control of addressable, tunable lighting fixtures for general illumination control. The system is designed to scale horizontally, though it does require relative proximity in the network topology to maintain effective temporal resolution of lighting transitons. The proposed system utilizes current technologies but is modular such that future device innovations can be supported. Solutions to recurring difficulty areas in managing conflicting desires versus constraints, space-type temporal-sensitivity and portability of preferences are presented. Unlike prior work in lighting control the system does not require dedicated control hardware or extensive technical background to operate. The system can be retrofitted to most modern commercial office buildings and provides immediate improvements to controllability of the space to both the occupant and building administrator.by Harrison King Hall.M.Eng

Efficient Learning with Subgoals and Gaussian Process

This thesis demonstrates how data efficiency in reinforcement learning can be improved through the use of subgoals and Gaussian process. Data efficiency is extremely important in a range of problems in which gathering additional data is expensive. This tends to be the case in most problems that involve actual interactions with the physical world, such as a robot kicking a ball, an autonomous vehicle driving or a drone manoeuvring. State of the art data efficiency is achieved on several well researched problems. The systems that achieve this learn Gaussian process state transition models of the problem. The model based learner system uses the state transition model to learn the action to take in each state. The subgoal planner makes use of the state transition model to build an explicit plan to solve the problem. The subgoal planner is improved through the use of learned subgoals to aid navigation of the problem space. The resource managed learner balances the costs of computation against the value of selecting better experiments in order to improve data efficiency. An active learning system is used to estimate the value of the experiments in terms of how much they may improve the current solution. This is compared to an estimate of how much better an experiment found by expending additional computation will be along with the costs of performing that computation. A theoretical framework around the use of subgoals in problem solving is presented. This framework provides insights into when and why subgoals are effective, along with avenues for future research. This includes a detailed proposal for a system built off the subgoal theory framework intended to make full use of subgoals to create an effective reinforcement learning system

Hardware Subsystem Proposal of an Off-Vehicle Battery Analyzer from a Charging/Discharging Perspective

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are seen as one of the solutions to some of the world’s global current problems, such as global warming and air pollution, due to non-existent operational emissions and increased efficiency. There are multiple types of EVs, one of them being Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) which in most cases utilizes a Li-Ion battery pack as energy storage. Li-Ion batteries for EV applications are deemed to have reached End of Life (EoL) at 80%-70% of the battery’s initial energy capacity, the degradation is caused by calendar and cycle aging. Calendar aging is dependent on storage temperature and State of Charge (SoC), controlling these factors are therefore of importance when storing battery packs to minimize aging. Diagnostics of battery packs is also useful for determining second-life applications, State of Health (SoH) or other future usage. AFRY has therefore an interest in developing a product that would enable diagnostics and charging/discharging of off-vehicle battery packs, as regular chargers and tools are not compatible with battery packs separated from its vehicle. This thesis is a part of a project to develop a product that enables diagnostics and charging/discharging for different types off-vehicle battery packs. Due to time limitation of the thesis work this report focuses on the hardware design of the Power Conversion Module (PCM) from a charging/discharging perspective. This thesis project will propose a theoretical PCM from received requirements and choose appropriate components for this subsystemfrom a charging/discharging perspective. The design requirements were gathered through interviews, archive analysis and literature studies and argued for. This to achieve an understanding of the requirements that the system design needs to fulfill. A system design proposal of the PCM was presented and a component analysis of the included components was conducted. The proposed solution should in theory enable charging/discharging of battery packs, but further work and studies needs to be performed to validate the results in practice. Some calculations and variables were inferredwith the help of discussions, due to lack of information and time. The goal of the thesis was fulfilled, and the wider project objective was partially fulfilled within the boundaries of this thesis project