Designettes: An Approach to Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Education

Design and other fundamental topics in engineering are often isolated to dedicated courses. An opportunity exists to foster a culture of engineering design and multidisciplinary problem solving throughout the curriculum. Designettes, charettelike design challenges, are rapid and creative learning tools that enable educators to integrate design learning in a single class, across courses, across terms, and across disciplines. When two or more courses join together in a designette, a multidisciplinary learning activity occurs; multiple subjects are integrated and applied to open-ended problems and grand challenges. This practice helps foster a culture of design, and enables the introduction of multidisciplinary design challenges. Studies at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) demonstrate learning of engineering subject matter in a bio-inspired robotics designette (MechAnimal), an interactive musical circuit designette, and an automated milk delivery (AutoMilk) designette. Each challenge combines problem clarification, concept generation, and prototyping with subject content such as circuits, biology, thermodynamics, differential equations, or software with controls. From pre- and postsurveys of students, designettes are found to increase students' understanding of engineering concepts. From 321 third-semester students, designettes were found to increase students' perceptions of their ability to solve multidisciplinary problems

Integrating mobile robotics and vision with undergraduate computer science

This paper describes the integration of robotics education into an undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. The proposed approach delivers mobile robotics as well as covering the closely related field of Computer Vision, and is directly linked to the research conducted at the authors’ institution. The paper describes the most relevant details of the module content and assessment strategy, paying particular attention to the practical sessions using Rovio mobile robots. The specific choices are discussed that were made with regard to the mobile platform, software libraries and lab environment. The paper also presents a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of student results, including the correlation between student engagement and performance, and discusses the outcomes of this experience

Healthcare Robotics

Robots have the potential to be a game changer in healthcare: improving health and well-being, filling care gaps, supporting care givers, and aiding health care workers. However, before robots are able to be widely deployed, it is crucial that both the research and industrial communities work together to establish a strong evidence-base for healthcare robotics, and surmount likely adoption barriers. This article presents a broad contextualization of robots in healthcare by identifying key stakeholders, care settings, and tasks; reviewing recent advances in healthcare robotics; and outlining major challenges and opportunities to their adoption.Comment: 8 pages, Communications of the ACM, 201

Dynamics simulation of human box delivering task

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2018The dynamic optimization of a box delivery motion is a complex task. The key component is to achieve an optimized motion associated with the box weight, delivering speed, and location. This thesis addresses one solution for determining the optimal delivery of a box. The delivering task is divided into five subtasks: lifting, transition step, carrying, transition step, and unloading. Each task is simulated independently with appropriate boundary conditions so that they can be stitched together to render a complete delivering task. Each task is formulated as an optimization problem. The design variables are joint angle profiles. For lifting and carrying task, the objective function is the dynamic effort. The unloading task is a byproduct of the lifting task, but done in reverse, starting with holding the box and ending with it at its final position. In contrast, for transition task, the objective function is the combination of dynamic effort and joint discomfort. The various joint parameters are analyzed consisting of joint torque, joint angles, and ground reactive forces. A viable optimization motion is generated from the simulation results. It is also empirically validated. This research holds significance for professions containing heavy box lifting and delivering tasks and would like to reduce the chance of injury.Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 Skeletal Human Modeling -- Chapter 3 Kinematics and Dynamics -- Chapter 4 Lifting Simulation -- Chapter 5 Carrying Simulation -- Chapter 6 Delivering Simulation -- Chapter 7 Conclusion and Future Research -- Reference

Development of a Collaborative, Distance Learning Based route to BEng/MEng qualification for Engineers in Employment.

This report presents the development of an integrated programme entitled MEng Engineering that will provide an opportunity for engineers already in the workforce to engage with upskilling that can lead to their gaining professional recognition. Progression will be provided directly from level HNC/HND/FdSc qualifications for engineers already in employment to gain BEng and MEng qualifications by part time distance learning mode. The programme will be jointly delivered by BU and BPC, the award will be a BU award. The programme will be delivered in 2-6 years depending upon entry and exit points and amount of credits studied in an academic year. The programme has been developed through close discussion with various employer representatives. It is the intention that the programme will be submitted to the Institution of Engineering Designers (IED) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) for Engineering Council accreditation for the academic requirements of IEng/CEng as appropriate to level