Wearable payment for young women - Utilizing rapid prototyping in iterative conceptual design

This is a production-based thesis work made aside my work as a 3d-printing specialist in Microsoft Mobile`s Design Department`s 3d-lab. The topic is designing a jewelry-like payment device for young women. A production-based thesis work was made to discover the process of designing for wearable technology and the practical issues related to it. The main process-guiding assumption in this thesis is that familiar, jewelry-like form would be more acceptable for young women in context of everyday wearable device. Important goal for 3d-lab is to knit rapid prototyping as an integral part of design process, so I utilized rapid prototyping as my main methodology for studying the subject. The goals for thesis work were to learn more about wearable devices field and practical design issues relevant to it. For author the goal was to improve my skills both in iterative design concept -creation and prototyping. The goal for the concept-creation was to prototype an idea for acceptable, wearable, contactless alternative for traditional debit card in small everyday purchases, targeting to young women. The methods used in this thesis work are literature research, benchmarking, rapid prototyping, expert interview and user-centered design methods. The process consisted of background research, making re-brief, technical concept creation, making several product design ideas, testing and reviewing the ideas, selecting one design for further development and finally testing and reviewing the appearance model and interaction prototype with potential end users. The project`s end result is a design concept depicted by prototypes and pictures, and a written thesis report about the design process and philosophy behind the design work. The main focus of this written report is in product design, the minor focus areas are designing interaction and concept creation. Concentrating deeply to all product development areas was not purposeful in thesis framework, so I decided to put most effort on describing the product design development

Sustainability of cardboard packages

Sustainability is an essential part of production and business strategies in the pulp and paper industry, which is active in the three interdependent pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic and social. The combination of environmental, economic and social aspects of activities in the packaging sub-sector of the industry is an example of sustainability guaranteed within the framework of the circular and bio economy. Cardboard packages are one of the most produced assortments in the paper industry. They are an excellent example of production that meets the requirements of the circular economy, based on the principles of sustainable consumption of resources, sustainable production and sustainable development. The aim of this research is to present the characteristic and role of cardboard packages as an example of sustainable production and consumption. In the study have been used the descriptive - analytical approach, the methods of comparison, analysis and synthesis

The Sweater Work / Shop

The Sweater Work / Shop is a project focusing on the utilization of DIY, crafts and making techniques in a design context. Setting out to develop a small-scale system, this Thesis explores the possibilities of working with textile waste in new and innovative ways through hands-on making while searching for an alternative to mass consumption. Theoretical research provides relevant and contemporary knowledge about the key areas of DIY, crafts and making, as well as their suggested benefits for the environment, society, individual wellbeing and the human-object relationship. Added to this, an extensive practical research provides deeper insights into these themes, related businesses and local projects, together with applied knowledge about the DIY, crafts and making process in a series of experiments with techniques and materials. An in-depth analysis summarizes the most significant problems and opportunities learned by application of the previously mentioned research methods, resulting in the formulation of a design brief for the practical prototype. The prototype itself is a small mobile kiosk to show, make and sell. It visualizes the process of un-knitting old garments, making recycled yarns and then knitting new products from these yarns. It serves both as a workstation and a small shop, therefore the title of this Thesis: The Sweater Work / Shop. This prototype is combined with an alternative pricing system, offering customized products for a lower price, and thereby creating value through engagement of the customer and the story of the making process instead of monetary investments. In the end, a real-life trial proved, that customized products offer a good balance of involvement; allowing even those who don’t want to craft, DIY or make to participate and benefit from some of the positive aspects of DIY, crafts and making

A Complex Event Processing System for Monitoring of Manufacturing Systems

Future manufacturing systems will require to process large amounts of complex data due to a rising demand on visibility and vertical integration of factory floor devices with higher level systems. Systems contained in higher layers of the business model are rapidly moving towards a Service Oriented Architecture, inducing a tendency to push Web Technologies down to the factory floor level. Evidence of this trend is the addition of Web Services at the device level with Device Profile for Web Services and the transition of OPC based on COM/DCOM communication to OPC-UA based on Web Services. DPWS and OPC-UA are becoming nowadays the preferred options to provide on a device level, service-oriented solutions capable to extend with an Event Driven Architecture into manufacturing systems. This thesis provides an implementation of a factory shop floor monitor based on Complex Event Processing for event-driven manufacturing processes. Factory shop monitors are particularly used to inform the workshop personnel via alarms, notifications and, visual aids about the performance and status of a manufacturing process. This work abstracts the informative value of the event-cloud surrounding the factory shop floor by processing its content against rules and formulas to convert it to valuable pieces of information that can be exposed to business monitors and dashboards. As a result, a system with a generic framework for integrating heterogeneous sources was reached, transforming simple data into alarms and complex events containing a specific context within the manufacturing process

A Sequential Control Language for Industrial Automation

Current market trends for industrial automation are the need for customizable production, shorter time to market, and powerful global competitive pressure. Based on these trends two challenges have been identified: 1) flexible production systems and 2) integration and utilization of devices and software. Applications from both process automation, manufacturing, and robotics have been considered. More flexible languages and tools are needed to get a flexible production system. The graphical programming language Grafchart, based on the IEC 61131-3 standard language Sequential Function Charts (SFC), is considered with the aim to make both the language and its implementation more flexible. In particular, new constructs have been added to the Grafchart language and modern compiler techniques are evaluated for JGrafchart, a Grafchart implementation, with focus on an extensible language implementation. A first step toward real-time execution of Grafchart applications is also taken to make it possible to use Grafchart for hard real-time control. High execution rates often reveal concurrency issues and thus execution concurrency has also been investigated. Access to more data from industrial devices and software can be used to optimize production. Architectures for factory integration have been considered as this is the foundation to connect all devices and thus address the challenge of integrating and utilizing devices and software. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a flexible software design methodology widely used in IT systems and for business processes. SOA service orchestration is brought to industrial automation by integrating support for both Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS) and OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) in JGrafchart. Looking further, SOA 2.0 is event driven and features extremely loose coupling between components. An architecture based on SOA 2.0 where it is easy to integrate any device or software, in particular legacy devices with limited knowledge and capabilities, has been developed with focus on service choreography in industrial manufacturing. Another step toward real-time execution of Grafchart applications is integrated support for the high performance communication protocol LabComm. Additionally, it is investigated how Grafchart can be connected to Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) for co-simulation to further address the shorter time to market trend by introducing simulation support. The PID controller is the most common controller for industrial automation. A PID implementation has been added to a Grafchart library and a flaw with the PID algorithm has been discovered. The problem occurs for PID controllers with a derivative part when the process value saturates. The derivative part then backs off which leads to undesired changes in the control signal. This issue has been analyzed and a solution to the problem is proposed

Fog Computing

Everything that is not a computer, in the traditional sense, is being connected to the Internet. These devices are also referred to as the Internet of Things and they are pressuring the current network infrastructure. Not all devices are intensive data producers and part of them can be used beyond their original intent by sharing their computational resources. The combination of those two factors can be used either to perform insight over the data closer where is originated or extend into new services by making available computational resources, but not exclusively, at the edge of the network. Fog computing is a new computational paradigm that provides those devices a new form of cloud at a closer distance where IoT and other devices with connectivity capabilities can offload computation. In this dissertation, we have explored the fog computing paradigm, and also comparing with other paradigms, namely cloud, and edge computing. Then, we propose a novel architecture that can be used to form or be part of this new paradigm. The implementation was tested on two types of applications. The first application had the main objective of demonstrating the correctness of the implementation while the other application, had the goal of validating the characteristics of fog computing.Tudo o que não é um computador, no sentido tradicional, está sendo conectado à Internet. Esses dispositivos também são chamados de Internet das Coisas e estão pressionando a infraestrutura de rede atual. Nem todos os dispositivos são produtores intensivos de dados e parte deles pode ser usada além de sua intenção original, compartilhando seus recursos computacionais. A combinação desses dois fatores pode ser usada para realizar processamento dos dados mais próximos de onde são originados ou estender para a criação de novos serviços, disponibilizando recursos computacionais periféricos à rede. Fog computing é um novo paradigma computacional que fornece a esses dispositivos uma nova forma de nuvem a uma distância mais próxima, onde “Things” e outros dispositivos com recursos de conectividade possam delegar processamento. Nesta dissertação, exploramos fog computing e também comparamos com outros paradigmas, nomeadamente cloud e edge computing. Em seguida, propomos uma nova arquitetura que pode ser usada para formar ou fazer parte desse novo paradigma. A implementação foi testada em dois tipos de aplicativos. A primeira aplicação teve o objetivo principal de demonstrar a correção da implementação, enquanto a outra aplicação, teve como objetivo validar as características de fog computing

3D Printing

This thesis, while providing a scholarly review of historical and contemporary developments alike, communicates to the lay reader the historical, current, and future impacts of 3D printing on society in the United States

3D Printed Carbon Fiber Electric Mountain Bike Frame

3D printing of carbon fiber composites has been a developing technology for about 5 years, and in this time, Arevo Labs has established itself as a leader in the field. Our team joined forces with Arevo, who sponsored our project as we showcased their new, innovative carbon fiber manufacturing process. To do so, we focused on the conceptual design, analysis, assembly, and material testing of an electric mountain-bike frame printed with Arevo’s continuous carbon fiber printing technology. Our bike consists of the main frame and a chain stay subsystem, which connects the rear wheel to the rest of the frame and interfaces with a suspension system. Understanding how the capabilities of the printer, the properties of the materials, and the typical loading scenarios experienced by mountain bikes all worked together was paramount in analysis, simulation, and design optimization and iteration. Thus, the focus of this project is to design a mountain bike capable of withstanding typical loading patterns with a high level of safety. Further, the team aimed to optimize a bike frame which used the minimal amount of material necessary to reduce weight and cost for the user