Programming Language Tools and Techniques for 3D Printing

We propose a research agenda to investigate programming language techniques for improving affordable, end-user desktop manufacturing processes such as 3D printing. Our goal is to adapt programming languages tools and extend the decades of research in industrial, high-end CAD/CAM in order to help make affordable desktop manufacturing processes more accurate, fast, reliable, and accessible to end-users. We focus on three major areas where 3D printing can benefit from programming language tools: design synthesis, optimizing compilation, and runtime monitoring. We present preliminary results on synthesizing editable CAD models from difficult-to-edit surface meshes, discuss potential new compilation strategies, and propose runtime monitoring techniques. We conclude by discussing additional near-future directions we intend to pursue

Building ArtBots to attract students into STEM learning

There is an increasing worldwide demand for people educated into science and technology. Unfortunately, girls and underprivileged students are often underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education programs. We believe that by inclusion of art in these programs, educational activities might become more attractive to a broader audience. In this work we present an example of such an educational activity: an international robotics and art week for secondary school students. This educational activity builds up on the project-based and inquiry learning framework. This article is intended as a brief manual to help others organise such an activity. It also gives insights in how we led a highly heterogeneous group of students into learning STEM and becoming science and technology ambassadors for their peers

What did the Romans ever do for us? ‘Next generation’ networks and hybrid learning resources

Networked learning is fundamentally concerned with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to link people to people and resources, to support the process of learning. This paper explores some current and forthcoming changes in ICT and some potential implications of these developments for networked learning. Whilst we aim to avoid taking a technologically determinist stance, we explore the potential for future practice and how some educational and pedagogic practices are evolving to exploit and shape the digital environment. We argue that we can change both the ways in which connections between people (learners and other learners; learners and tutors) are made and the nature of the resources that learning communities (particularly distributed communities) can engage with. In doing this we draw on two strands of work. Firstly, we draw on the ‘IBZL Education’ a UK Open University initiative to develop new scholarship in the context of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) through which educators are encouraged to think about technological change in the next five to ten years and ways in which we can intervene and shape these developments. We use problem-based learning as an example of a learning experience that can be difficult to implement in a networked learning environment. IBZL identified two broad strands of significant technological development. 'Superfast' broadband networks that are capable of supporting novel applications are being rolled in the UK (and elsewhere). Also, boundaries between the real and virtual worlds are becoming blurred as in the ‘internet of things’ where, for example, RFID tags enable information about the real world to be brought into the virtual one. We use the term ‘artefact’ to describe designed components, whether entirely digital, such as a computer forum, or material, such as a tablet PC. Networked ‘hybrid’ technologies of virtual and material components have may great potential for use in education. Secondly, we illustrate how these changes may be beginning to happen in distance education using the example of TU100 My Digital Life, a new introductory Open University. . TU100 Students use an electronics board in their own homes to work on a programming problem in collaboration other students through a tutor-led tutorial in a web conferencing system. We also note some of the evident complexity that establishing such resources as part of wider infrastructures of networked learning would be likely to involve

Overview of technologies for building robots in the classroom

This paper aims to give an overview of technologies that can be used to implement robotics within an educational context. We discuss complete robotics systems as well as projects that implement only certain elements of a robotics system, such as electronics, hardware, or software. We believe that Maker Movement and DIY trends offers many new opportunities for teaching and feel that they will become much more prominent in the future. Products and projects discussed in this paper are: Mindstorms, Vex, Arduino, Dwengo, Raspberry Pi, MakeBlock, OpenBeam, BitBeam, Scratch, Blockly and ArduBlock

Automated sequence and motion planning for robotic spatial extrusion of 3D trusses

While robotic spatial extrusion has demonstrated a new and efficient means to fabricate 3D truss structures in architectural scale, a major challenge remains in automatically planning extrusion sequence and robotic motion for trusses with unconstrained topologies. This paper presents the first attempt in the field to rigorously formulate the extrusion sequence and motion planning (SAMP) problem, using a CSP encoding. Furthermore, this research proposes a new hierarchical planning framework to solve the extrusion SAMP problems that usually have a long planning horizon and 3D configuration complexity. By decoupling sequence and motion planning, the planning framework is able to efficiently solve the extrusion sequence, end-effector poses, joint configurations, and transition trajectories for spatial trusses with nonstandard topologies. This paper also presents the first detailed computation data to reveal the runtime bottleneck on solving SAMP problems, which provides insight and comparing baseline for future algorithmic development. Together with the algorithmic results, this paper also presents an open-source and modularized software implementation called Choreo that is machine-agnostic. To demonstrate the power of this algorithmic framework, three case studies, including real fabrication and simulation results, are presented.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figure

Designing experiments using digital fabrication in structural dynamics

In engineering, traditional approaches aimed at teaching concepts of dynamics to engineering students include the study of a dense yet sequential theoretical development of proofs and exercises. Structural dynamics are seldom taught experimentally in laboratories since these facilities should be provided with expensive equipment such as wave generators, data-acquisition systems, and heavily wired deployments with sensors. In this paper, the design of an experimental experience in the classroom based upon digital fabrication and modeling tools related to structural dynamics is presented. In particular, all experimental deployments are conceived with low-cost, open-source equipment. The hardware includes Arduino-based open-source electronics whereas the software is based upon object-oriented open-source codes for the development of physical simulations. The set of experiments and the physical simulations are reproducible and scalable in classroom-based environments.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Visual arts and 2D – 3D motion typo.graphic design

This project explores issues of typographic design within multimedia contexts, which include interactive, sonic and animated components