Advanced Technology for Engineering Education

This document contains the proceedings of the Workshop on Advanced Technology for Engineering Education, held at the Peninsula Graduate Engineering Center, Hampton, Virginia, February 24-25, 1998. The workshop was jointly sponsored by the University of Virginia's Center for Advanced Computational Technology and NASA. Workshop attendees came from NASA, other government agencies, industry and universities. The objectives of the workshop were to assess the status of advanced technologies for engineering education and to explore the possibility of forming a consortium of interested individuals/universities for curriculum reform and development using advanced technologies. The presentations covered novel delivery systems and several implementations of new technologies for engineering education. Certain materials and products are identified in this publication in order to specify adequately the materials and products that were investigated in the research effort. In no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement of products by NASA, nor does it imply that the materials and products are the only ones or the best ones available for this purpose. In many cases equivalent materials and products are available and would probably produce equivalent results

Supporting community engagement through teaching, student projects and research

The Education Acts statutory obligations for ITPs are not supported by the Crown funding model. Part of the statutory role of an ITP is “... promotes community learning and by research, particularly applied and technological research ...” [The education act 1989]. In relation to this a 2017 TEC report highlighted impaired business models and an excessive administrative burden as restrictive and impeding success. Further restrictions are seen when considering ITPs attract < 3 % of the available TEC funding for research, and ~ 20 % available TEC funding for teaching, despite having overall student efts of ~ 26 % nationally. An attempt to improve performance and engage through collaboration (community, industry, tertiary) at our institution is proving successful. The cross-disciplinary approach provides students high level experience and the technical stretch needed to be successful engineers, technologists and technicians. This study presents one of the methods we use to collaborate externally through teaching, student projects and research

Teaching structural behavior through an interactive and complete learning environment

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-80).by Emma Shepherdson.M.S

Generative design in building information modelling (BIM) : approaches and requirements

The integration of generative design (GD) and building information modelling (BIM), as a new technology consolidation, can facilitate the constructability of GD’s automatic design solutions, while improving BIM’s capability in the early design phase. Thus, there has been an increasing interest to study GD-BIM, with current focuses mainly on exploring applications and investigating tools. However, there are a lack of studies regarding methodological relationships and skill requirement based on different development objectives or GD properties; thus, the threshold of developing GD-BIM still seems high. This study conducts a critical review of current approaches for developing GD in BIM, and analyses methodological relationships, skill requirements, and improvement of GD-BIM development. Accordingly, novel perspectives of objective-oriented, GD component-based, and skill-driven GD-BIM development as well as reference guides are proposed. Finally, future research directions, challenges, and potential solutions are discussed. This research aims to guide designers in the building industry to properly determine approaches for developing GD-BIM and inspire researchers’ future studies

Designing capacity-building in e-learning expertise: Challenges and strategies

This research study looks at how organizations in developing countries perceive the challenge of building capacity in e-learning expertise. Data was collected on six such organizations, and a range of perceived rationales and constraints were identified. The paper hypothesizes a four-part framework to define the e-learning capacity gaps that these circumstances appear to represent: the 'instructional design capacity gap', the 'production capacity gap', the 'tutorial capacity gap' and the 'community building gap'. The framework is used to re-examine the data to explore the ways in which the organizations' e-learning activities might constitute strategic responses to the hypothesized capacity gaps

Urban generosity: design strategies for an architecture of liveability

As practice based research, this exegesis is a dissemination of design strategies embedded in the process termed Urban Generosity. The beginning of the twentieth first century has seen the rise of greater populations within cities creating new demands on the form and structure of cities. This proliferation of human activity has given rise to the nature of cities, a place of exchange and surplus, a place of urban generosity. This research has observed how local conditions can readily be shifted given our global assertion of liveability and governance, with either detrimental or enhancing outcomes, on the long-term generosity of the city. Through observation it is proposed that urban generosity is active, it facilitates a series of design responses that transcends architectural iconic object making through a series of subtle design devices. Urban generosity is the investigation of an architecture that authenticates the local context and allows the imagination of others to delight within a given context. It is fundamentally about clothing that culture and its binding civic effect that extends the individual site into a wider context harnessing the forces of globalisation to develop a civic surplus. The design investigations have developed around the key question of how architecture can extend itself beyond a mid-twentieth century form/ function paradigm? What opportunities does architecture offer the environment in which it is placed

Facilitating immersion, engagement and flow in multi-user virtual environments

Virtual worlds are providing myriad opportunities for the development of innovative curricula for tertiary educators. They provide a virtual meeting space for those students and lecturers who are geographically remote from one another, rendering distance irrelevant and facilitating the formation of community. This paper will look at those factors - physical, social, virtual and those related to pedagogy - which facilitate immersion in virtual worlds; that suspension of disbelief which generates the feeling of presence or 'being there', crucial to promoting student engagement and ultimately, flow

Discrete Automation - Eyes of the City

Observing people’s presence in physical space and deciphering their behaviors have always been critical actions to designers, planners and anyone else who has an interest in exploring how cities work. It was 1961 when Jane Jacobs, in her seminal book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, coined a famous expression to convey this idea. According to Jacobs, “the natural proprietors” of a certain part of the metropolis – the people who live, work or spend a substantial amount of time there – become the “eyes on the street.” Their collective, distributed, decentralized gaze becomes the prerequisite to establishing “a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city.” Almost half a century later, we find ourselves at the inception of a new chapter in the relationship between the city and digital technologies, which calls for a reexamination of the old “eyes on the street” idea. In the next few years, thanks to the most recent advances in Artificial Intelligence, deep learning and imaging, we are about to reach an unprecedented scenario, the most radical development in the evolution of the Internet-of-Things: architectural space is acquiring the full ability to “see.” Imagine that any room, street or shop in our city can recognize you, and autonomously respond to your presence. With Jacobs’s “eyes on the street,” it was people who looked at other people or the city and interpreted its mechanisms. In this new scenario, buildings and streets similarly acquire the ability to observe and react as urban life unfolds in front of them. After the “eyes on the street,” we are now entering the era of the “Eyes of the City.” What happens, then, to people and the urban landscape when the sensor-imbued city is able to gaze back? What we are currently facing is an “utopia or oblivion” crossroads, to say it with the words of one of the most notable thinkers of the past century, Richard Buckminster Fuller. We believe that one of the fundamental duties of architects and designers today is to grapple with this momentous shift, and engage people in the process. “Eyes of the City” aims to experiment with these emerging scenarios to better comprehend them, deconstructing the potential uses of new technologies in order to make them accessible to everyone and inspire people to form an opinion. Using critical design as a tool, the exhibition seeks to create experiences that will encourage people to get involved in defining the ways in which new technologies will shape their cities in years to come. For this reason, it recognizes in Shenzhen’s Futian high-speed railway station its natural home – a place where to reach a broad, diverse audience of intentional visitors and accidental passersby, and a space where, just like in most other liminal transportation hubs, the impact of an “Eyes of the City” scenario is likely going to be felt the most