RFID Gesture Generating Robot [catalogue]

The installation invites visitors to touch a suitable RFID card, such as an Oystercard, against a reader and then generates a unique and repeatable gesture in space according to the serial number of the card, in a movement reminiscent of a conductor’s baton or magician’s wand. It explores the representation of data using physical movement and the generation of elegant motion

Innovations in learning and teaching interactions between BA (Hons) Product Design and BSc (Hons) Product Design engineering students on design projects

This paper examines methodologies and strategies used to motivate BA (Hons) Product Design (BAs) and BSc (Hons) Product Design Engineering students (BScs) to successfully work in pairs to design innovative and unusual kitchen gadgets. This was a live project with an industrial partner, in this instance design-led leading kitchen gadget company ‘Joseph Joseph’ (JJ). It details motivational techniques championed by the tutor(s) to enhance the product outcomes, enthuse and benefit students including the pioneering pairing of BAs and BScs within the Product Design Engineering Department of Middlesex University for the very first time. Techniques such as enhanced visualisation through meditation, skill sharing, iterative prototyping, body-storming and presentation skills are examined to ascertain how the project received very high satisfaction and engagement rates from students as well as fulfilling the client brief to a very high standard. A detailed feedback questionnaire was filled in by each student and acts as statistical validation of method and satisfaction rate. Several outcomes from this project were of a high enough standard to be taken to the second stage of consideration for manufacture by the top stainless steel manufacturer in Germany. The paper concludes that creativity is greatly enhanced by skill sharing, many quick activities in the initial ideas stage and a long period of functionality development in the workshops. This is done before final designs can be more fully worked out using the best of BA/BSc knowledge and skills

Communicating simulated emotional states of robots by expressive movements

This research focuses on the non-verbal communication of non-android robots by comparing the results produced by three different emotional models: Russell’s circumplex model of affect, Tellegen-Watson-Clark model and PAD scale. The relationship between the motion of the robot and the perceived emotion is developed. The motion parameters such as velocity and acceleration are changed systematically to observe the change in the perception of affect. The embodiment is programmed to adopt the smooth human motion profile of the robot in contrast to the traditional trapezoidal velocity profile. From the results produced it can be concluded that the emotions perceived by the user is the same on all three scales, validating the reliability of all the three emotional scale models and also of the emotions perceived by the user. Moreover the selected motion parameters of velocity and acceleration are linked with the change of perceived emotions

Methodologies and strategies for enhancing the undergraduate experience for BA/BSC product design students through collaborations with designer Moritz Waldemeyer

This paper examines methodologies and strategies used to enhance learning and the Undergraduate experience for BA(Hons) and BSc(Hons) Product Design students. Specifically, it details a number of projects in collaboration with an external designer, (Waldemeyer) Moritz Waldemeyer and how this has led to enhanced student experiences and high profile work opportunities both during studies and upon graduation. This includes work with Mercedes, Ellie Goulding, Take That, Electrabel, Laikingland and The Olympic Closing Ceremony and Paralympics, 2012. The paper describes the progression of Waldemeyer from a one-off guest lecturer to becoming a visiting lecturer at Middlesex University facilitating a live Design Project as part of the curriculum along with Laikingland. This led to the placement of students on commercial projects outside of the University and finally, to Waldemeyer becoming a Designer in Residence. The paper demonstrates how the live projects motivated the partaking students to develop vital skills leading to a high proportion of high level degree outcomes. Their increased confidence and competency on working to live deadlines has led to a number of them setting up or working in successful design studios, launching products on Kickstarter and being taken on as Graduate Teaching Assistants at Middlesex University. Techniques such as presentation and visualisation skills, thinking on the job, iterative prototyping, physical computing skills and group work contributed to the success of this approach alongside encouragement and facilitation from the participating tutors

Carnivorous domestic entertainment robots [exhibition]

In the context of the home, definitions of what a robot is and could be are open for interpretation. These robots are devices for utility, drama and entertainment. They exist in a similar way to an exotic pet such as a snake or a lizard, where we provide living prey and become voyeurs in a synthesized, contrived microcosm. The predatory nature of these autonomous entities raises questions about life and death, taking us out of the moral comfort zone regarding the mechanized taking of life. They compete with the spectacle of life seen in programmes such as Big Brother, wife swap or televised, edited and dramatised depictions of war. as consumers of these programmes, like those who keep vivariums, we have the potential to be repulsed, engaged or both, and as voyeurs might consider ourselves complicit

Quantification of dynamic excitation potential of pedestrian population crossing footbridges

This is the final version. Available on open access from Hindawi via the DOI in this recordDue to their slenderness, many modern footbridges may vibrate significantly under pedestrian traffic. Consequently, the vibration serviceability of these structures under human-induced dynamic loading is becoming their governing design criterion. Many current vibration serviceability design guidelines, concerned with prediction of the vibration in the vertical direction, estimate a single response level that corresponds to an "average" person crossing the bridge with the step frequency that matches a footbridge natural frequency. However, different pedestrians have different dynamic excitation potential, and therefore could generate significantly different vibration response of the bridge structure. This paper aims to quantify this potential by estimating the range of structural vibrations (in the vertical direction) that could be induced by different individuals and the probability of occurrence of any particular vibration level. This is done by introducing the inter- and intra-subject variability in the walking force modelling. The former term refers to inability of a pedestrian to induce an exactly the same force with each step while the latter refers to different forces (in terms of their magnitude, frequency and crossing speed) induced by different people. Both types of variability are modelled using the appropriate probability density functions. The probability distributions were then implemented into a framework procedure for vibration response prediction under a single person excitation. Instead of a single response value obtained using currently available design guidelines, this new framework yields a range of possible acceleration responses induced by different people and a distribution function for these responses. The acceleration ranges estimated are then compared with experimental data from two real-life footbridges. The substantial differences in the dynamic response induced by different people are obtained in both the numerical and the experimental results presented. These results therefore confirm huge variability in different people's dynamic potential to excite the structure. The proposed approach for quantifying this variability could be used as a sound basis for development of new probability-based vibration serviceability assessment procedures for pedestrian bridges. © 2011 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

Effect of group walking traffic on dynamic properties of pedestrian structures

The increasing number of reported vibration serviceability problems in newly built pedestrian structures, such as footbridges and floors, under walking load has attracted considerable attention in the civil engineering community over the past two decades. The key design challenges are: the inter- and intra-subject variability of walking people, the unknown mechanisms of their interaction with the vibrating walking surfaces and the synchronisation between individuals in a group. Ignoring all or some of these factors makes the current design methods an inconsistent approximation of reality. This often leads to considerable over- or under-estimation of the structural response, yielding an unreliable assessment of vibration performance. Changes to the dynamic properties of an empty structure due to the presence of stationary people have been studied extensively over the past two decades. The understanding of the similar effect of walking people on laterally swaying bridges has improved tremendously in the past decade, due to considerable research prompted by the Millennium Bridge problem. However, there is currently a gap in knowledge about how moving pedestrians affect the dynamic properties of vertically vibrating structures. The key reason for this gap is the scarcity of credible experimental data pertinent to moving pedestrians on vertically vibrating structures, especially for multi-pedestrian traffic. This paper addresses this problem by studying the dynamic properties of the combined human-structure system, i.e. occupied structure damping ratio, natural frequency and modal mass. This was achieved using a comprehensive set of frequency response function records, measured on a full-scale test structure, which was occupied by various numbers of moving pedestrians under different walking scenarios. Contrary to expectations, it was found that the natural frequency of the joint moving human-structure system was higher than that of the empty structure, while it was lower when the same people were standing still. The damping ratio of the joint human-structure system was considerably higher than that of the empty structure for both the walking and standing people – in agreement with previous reports for stationary people - and was more prominent for larger groups. Interestingly, it was found that the walking human-structure system has more damping compared with the equivalent standing human-structure system. The properties of a single degree of freedom mass-spring-damper system representing a moving crowd needed to replicate these observations have been identified

Digital twin control of multi-axis wood CNC machining center based on LinuxCNC

Abstrack: This paper presents an application of an open architecture control system implemented on a multi-axis wood computer numerical control milling machining center, as a digital twin control. The development of the digital twin control system was motivated by research and educational requirements, especially in the field of configuring a new control system by “virtual commissioning”, enabling the validation of the developed controls, program verification, and analysis of the machining process and monitoring. The considered wood computer numerical control (CNC) machining system is supported by an equivalent virtual machine in a computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) environment, as well as in the control system, as a digital twin. The configured virtual machines are used for the verification of the machining program and programming system via machining simulation, which is extremely important in multi-axis machining. Several test wood workpieces were machined to validate the effectiveness of the developed control system based on LinuxCNC

Brain response to focal vibro-tactile stimulation prior to muscle contraction

This paper presents a single case study of an on-going study evaluating cortical association with facilitation and management of vibro-tactile stimulation applied prior to voluntary muscle contraction. The study consisted of three repetitions of relaxation phase during which vibrations are applied, and a contraction phase. EEG and EMG data was collected to determine muscle and brain activation patterns. The EEG analysis of the mu waves during relaxation + vibration phase seem to indicate sensory cortex activation during focal muscle vibrations. With repetitiveness of vibrations, an increase in maximal calculated mu power was observed that could suggest optimization of the muscle fibers prior to the contraction. When contraction is performed, mu waves are desynchronizing with the movement execution. The analysis of the last relaxation period indicate that the muscle itself facilitates the last contraction locally possibly due to cortical learning

Cortical and Muscle Response to Focal Vibro-Tactile Stimuli

This paper investigates cortical responses to vibro-tactile stimuli. EEG was recorded in two conditions: when vibrations were applied focally on the muscle during relaxation and during muscle contraction. Mu and beta waves analysis of the EEG signals suggest that vibrations applied before the contraction increases the stretch of the muscle, thus improving its output performance. Further analysis of the vibrations applied during the muscle contraction shows cortical activation while modulating vibro-tactile stimuli to stabilise muscle performance