Product design as a vehicle to integrate arts and sciences in design education

In many parts of the world, Higher Education has often considered arts and sciences as an odd combination and many institutions have avoided this particular mix. Historically, this has been the accepted view; however, this view is changing. This paper provides a detailed account of curriculum development and strategies for enabling arts and science disciplines to blend in an effective way. It shows how strong alliances can be built in line with industry and general design practice expectations through “Live Projects”, that is projects sponsored by industry or other clients. The case studies provided in the paper are based on work conducted in the Product Design and Engineering Department at Middlesex University. The paper further demonstrates the importance of industry involvement, and how industrial collaborations can be managed to ensure that the academic provision is both relevant to the sector as well as responding to the needs of students. The paper was presented at the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR07), held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The papers for the conference were reviewed in a double blind review process, and the conference was attended by an audience of over 400 delegates, focusing on emerging trends in design researc

Učinci vremena izlaganja i temperature na zakretne momente uvrtanja vijaka u toplinski obrađeno drvo anadolskoga crnog bora i hrasta kitnjaka

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of screw driving torques in heat-treated Anatolian black pine and sessile oak wood. The wood samples were subjected to heat under atmospheric pressure at three different temperatures (130, 180 and 230 °C) and two different exposure time levels (2 and 8 h). Screw driving torques of seating and stripping torque (SET and STT) was performed on all samples. The process of screw driving had two main torques, one of which was the seating torque defined as the torque required to clamp parts and the other one was the stripping torque defined as the maximum torque right before the screw strips in the material and the torque drops suddenly because of the formed screw threads being stripped in wood material. Results show that, in both wood species, the SET and STT values decreased due to the increase in heat treatment temperature and exposure time compared to the control groups.Cilj ovog istraživanja bilo je ispitivanje svojstava zakretnih momenata zavrtanja vijaka u toplinski obrađeno drvo anadolskoga crnog bora i hrasta kitnjaka. Uzorci drva izloženi su toplini u atmosferskom tlaku pri trima različitim temperaturama (130, 180 i 230 °C) i tijekom dva različita vremena izlaganja (2 i 8 h). Na svim su uzorcima određeni zakretni momenti uvrtanja i odvrtanja vijaka (SET i STT). Riječ je o dvama glavnim zakretnim momentima u procesu spajanja vijcima, od kojih je jedan zakretni moment zatezanja, a drugi je zakretni moment odvrtanja, definiran kao maksimalni zakretni moment neposredno prije nego što se vijak izvuče iz materijala i moment se naglo smanji zbog guljenja navoja formiranih u drvnome materijalu. Rezultati pokazuju da se vrijednosti SET i STT za obje vrste drva smanjuju s povećanjem temperature toplinske obrade i produljenjem vremena izlaganja u usporedbi s kontrolnim skupinama

Blending arts and sciences: gimmick or necessity?

The shortage of degree qualified engineers in the UK is well documented. On the other hand the surplus of art and design graduates is growing. Whilst acknowledging the shortage in engineering graduates, there is also the need to recognise the breadth and increased skill level that engineering graduates require. Is it therefore possible to convert some of the excess graduates in art and design to careers in design and development engineering? The success of many engineering businesses depends not only on technical excellence but also on understanding of the market needs and the speed of response to this demand. To make this task even harder, businesses are also expected to compete in markets that are open to global competition and are also faced with much more sophisticated consumers. Businesses that are engaged in the manufacture of goods now require a new breed of engineer. These are not only technically competent individuals, but also possess what is known as “soft” or “creative” skills traditionally found in graduates of art and design disciplines. This paper details an innovative curriculum model offered at postgraduate level to address the 21 st century needs of engineering businesses. The paper also details rigorous recruitment tools developed and used for selecting students exclusively from the art and design discipline

Using acoustic sensor technologies to create a more terrain capable unmanned ground vehicle

Unmanned Ground Vehicle’s (UGV) have to cope with the most complex range of dynamic and variable obstacles and therefore need to be highly intelligent in order to cope with navigating in such a cluttered environment. When traversing over different terrains (whether it is a UGV or a commercial manned vehicle) different drive styles and configuration settings need to be selected in order to travel successfully over each terrain type. These settings are usually selected by a human operator in manned systems on what they assume the ground conditions to be, but how can an autonomous UGV ‘sense’ these changes in terrain or ground conditions? This paper will investigate noncontact acoustic sensor technologies and how they can be used to detect different terrain types by listening to the interaction between the wheel and the terrain. The results can then be used to create a terrain classification list for the system so in future missions it can use the sensor technology to identify the terrain type it is trying to traverse, which creating a more autonomous and terrain capable vehicle. The technology would also benefit commercial driver assistive technologie

Design and development of a pole climbing surveillance robot

The cost of installing, monitoring and servicing a fixed camera system can be high and not all areas are in need of constant surveying. The increase in crime in urban areas emphasizes the need for a more effective and efficient surveillance system, as a result could lead to fewer crimes. A temporary surveillance unit which is able to climb to gain an elevated view has great potential for both military and civilian application. This paper highlights how the patent pending climbing robotic system (PC-101) was developed to be used by London’s Metropolitan Police Forensic Department for analysing outdoor crime scenes especially that related to car accidents. When cars are involved in accidents in the Metropolitan area, depending on the scale of the incident, the road generally has to be shut off to traffic if there are serious casualties. Elevated images are required for cases which may be taken to court, which then the images are then used as evidence, therefore regulations on the quality and perspectives of the image have to be met. By climbing a range of existing street furniture such as street lamp post, a temporary platform eliminates the use of larger special vehicle which struggles to get to the crime scene as well as cuts down the duration of the road closure. 98% of London street lamps in the Metropolitan area are constructed out of steel structures which make the use of magnetic wheels for locomotion an ideal solution to the climbing problem. Once remote controlled to the top of the lamp post, the PC-101 makes use of its actuated camera arm/gimbal to take the required shot, which can be seen on the ground control unit. A surveillance tool of this sort can be used for many applications which include crowd/riot control, crime scene investigations, monitoring hostile environments and even the monitoring of nature within urban environment

Advances on biological rhythmic pattern generation: experiments, algorithms and applications

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Investigating the use of unmanned plant machinery on construction sites

The UK Construction Sector has been estimated to contribute 8% of the UK’s GDP [1]. The worldwide recession has forced construction companies to introduce and adopt cost saving measures to increase productivity. Several robotic building systems are in development for the Construction Sector such as the PERI’s Automatic Climbing System [2] and Brokk’s remote-controlled demolition machines [3], but there has been little implementation on live sites. Construction sites by their very nature are dynamically changing environments, so if human input was removed entirely, a robot would need a high level of awareness of the current state of the building project in order to navigate and carry out its task

A Stackelberg-game approach for disaster-recovery communications utilizing cooperative D2D

In this paper, we investigate disaster-recovery com- munications utilizing two-cell cooperative D2D communications. Specifically, one cell is in a healthy area while the other is in a disaster area. A user equipment (UE) in the healthy area aims to assist a UE in the disaster area to recover wireless information transfer (WIT) via an energy harvesting (EH) relay. In the healthy area, the cellular BS shares the spectrum with the UE, however, both of them may belong to different service providers. Thus, the UE pays an amount of price as incentive to the BS as part of two processes: energy trading and interference pricing. We formulate these two processes as two Stackelberg games, where their equilibrium is derived as closed- form solutions. The results help provide a sustainable framework for disaster recovery when the involving parties juggle between energy trading, interference compromise and payment incentives in establishing communications during the recovery process