scholarly journals EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF TABLET COMPUTERS ON DESIGN ENGINEERING

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remon Pop-Iliev ◽  
Scott Nokleby ◽  
George Platanitis
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Free Form ◽  
Design Engineering ◽  
Pilot Program ◽  
Tablet Computers ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Cad Cam ◽  
The Impact

Since 2005, with the endowment of the NSERC-GMCL Chair in Innovative Design Engineering at UOIT, and the Laptop-based, web-centric teaching approach, an ideal setting for the creation, prompt adoption, and implementation of advanced and innovative practices in teaching design engineering have been implemented, in addition to the use of traditional methods. A pilot program was recently completed to evaluate the use of Tablets in an engineering course. Tablets are currently used by faculty for teaching purposes at UOIT, but the program aims to integrate the use of Tablets within courses in the engineering design curriculum, namely for using CAD/CAM/CAE software. As CAD software capabilities improve, greater memory and computer speed is required, making the currently used conventional Laptops less useful for engineering design. In addition, Laptops do not lend themselves to graphical, free-form idea generation. It is intended that Tablets, with improved memory and processing speed, will facilitate CAD software usage, and hence, improve and enhance the overall design learning and application experience. Also, students can take advantage of software such as Microsoft OneNote to create preliminary sketches of designs and improve record-keeping of decisions during team meetings. In this pilot program, Tablet computers were issued to students and instruction personnel in a fourth-year Advanced Mechatronics course at UOIT. In this context, students were able to more efficiently carry out design assignments for term design projects, and students and instructors were able to evaluate the benefits of using Tablets. Overall, it was determined that Tablets were better as an engineering design tool compared to traditional Laptops.

The Impact of Team-Based Product Dissection on Design Novelty

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller ◽  
Gül E. Okudan Kremer
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Current Design ◽  
The Impact

Although design novelty is a critical area of research in engineering design, most research in this space has focused on understanding and developing formal idea generation methods instead of focusing on the impact of current design practices. This is problematic because formal techniques are often not adopted in industry due to the burdensome steps often included in these methods, which limit the practicality and adoption of these methods. This study seeks to understand the impact of product dissection, a design method widely utilized in academia and industry, on design novelty in order to produce recommendations for the use or alterations of this method for supporting novelty in design. To investigate the impact of dissection, a study was conducted with 76 engineering students who completed a team-based dissection of an electric toothbrush and then individually generated ideas. The relationships between involvement in the dissection activity, the product dissected, the novelty and quantity of the ideas developed were investigated. The results reveal that team members who were more involved in the dissection activity generated concepts that were more novel than those who did not. In addition, the type of the dissected product also had an influence on design novelty. Finally, a positive correlation between the number of ideas generated and the novelty of the design concepts was identified. The results from this study are used to provide recommendations for leveraging product dissection for enhancing novelty in engineering design education and practice.

scholarly journals A Systematic Review on Sketching Engineering Design in STEM Classroom

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anggi Cecilia Safaningrum
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Process Approach ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Student Sample ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Economic Background ◽  
Design Activities

Numerous studies in the last two decades have attempted to explain the significant relationship between effects of freehand sketching especially in the initial phase of idea generation in engineering design process approach. However, freehand sketches are not favoured by novice designer while generating design task. This paper aim to map how sketching skills benefit STEM-enriched learning environment and enabling visually communicated ideas to craft novelty solutions. This systematic review analysed nine papers that use sketch as design tool in STEM enriched engineering design activities. The literature is retrieved from established online database such as SCOPUS and EBSCOHOST. Sketch significantly proves as powerful tool in prompting visual ideas, reflect prior knowledge, aid communication and collaborative practise and engage active learning. The infancy of research using matured student sample, different ethnic and social economic background will create interesting research opportunities in multiracial nation.

Why Systematic Design Engineering?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Ernst Eder
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Science ◽  
Design Procedure ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Design Engineering ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Methodical Approach ◽  
Engineering Sciences ◽  
The Many ◽  
Action Modes

Design engineering is different from other more artistic forms of designing because on one hand it is more constrained by the engineering sciences, economics and other factors, but on the other hand it has more possibilities for abstract modeling in the conceptual phases. Creativity is essential, but in many cases not sufficient to explore the many possible candidate solutions. A more systematic and methodical approach can help to overcome many of the problems that arise during conceptualizing in design engineering. Use of appropriate methods to enhance the search for solutions can expand the solution field. A systematic approach based on engineering design science has been shown to enhance understanding, good record-keeping, and traceability for the design process. Several grounded theories are reviewed and brought into mutual context, they refer to memory and thinking operations, expertise, human action modes, and competencies. The discussion reveals a need for specific instructions for a methodical and systematic engineering design procedure, when the design problem is seen as non-routine, and expertise is lacking.

Can Design Teams Be Empathically Creative? A Simulation-Based Investigation on the Role of Team Empathy on Concept Generation and Selection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller ◽  
Jessica Menold ◽  
Jacquelyn Huff ◽  
Christopher McComb
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Computational Simulation ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
First Year ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Research on empathy has been surging in popularity in the engineering design community since empathy is known to help designers develop a deeper understanding of the users’ needs. Because of this, the design community has been invested in devising and assessing empathic design activities. However, research on empathy has been primarily limited to individuals, meaning we do not know how it impacts team performance, particularly in the concept generation and selection stages of the design process. Specifically, it is unknown how the empathic composition of teams, average (elevation) and standard deviation (diversity) of team members’ empathy, would impact design outcomes in the concept generation and selection stages of the design process. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of team trait empathy on concept generation and selection in an engineering design student project. This was accomplished through a computational simulation of 13,482 teams of noninteracting brainstorming individuals generated by a statistical bootstrapping technique drawing upon a design repository of 806 ideas generated by first-year engineering students. The main findings from the study indicate that the elevation in team empathy positively impacted simulated teams’ unique idea generation and selection while the diversity in team empathy positively impacted teams’ generation of useful ideas. The results from this study can be used to guide team formation in engineering design.

The Impact of Example Modality and Physical Interactions on Design Creativity

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Controlled Study ◽  
First Year ◽  
Design Creativity ◽  
Physical Interactions ◽  
2D And 3D ◽  
The Impact

Interacting with example products is an essential and widely practiced method in engineering design, yet little information exists on how the representation (pictorial or physical) or interaction a designer has with an example impacts design creativity. This is problematic because without this knowledge we do not understand how examples affect idea generation or how we can effectively modify or develop design methods to support example usage practices. In this paper, we report the results of a controlled study with first year engineering design students (N = 89) developed to investigate the impact of a designer's interaction with either a two-dimensional (2D) pictorial image or a three-dimensional (3D) product (through visual inspection or product dissection activities) and the resulting functional focus and creativity of the ideas developed. The results of this study reveal that participants who interacted with the physical example produced ideas that were less novel and less functionally focused than those who interacted with the 2D representation. Additionally, the results showed that participants who dissected the product produced a higher variety of ideas than those that visually inspected it. These results contribute to our understanding of the benefits and role of 2D and 3D designer-product interactions during idea development. We use these findings to develop recommendations for the use of designer-product interactions throughout the design process.

Evaluating the Directed Method for Bioinspired Design

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Glier ◽  
Joanna Tsenn ◽  
Julie S. Linsey ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Bioinspired Design ◽  
Translation Tools ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Active Research ◽  
The Impact

Bioinspired design, the practice of looking to nature to find inspiration for engineering design, is becoming an increasingly desired approach to design. It allows designers to tap a wealth of time-tested solutions to difficult problems in a domain rarely considered by designers. Only recently have researchers developed organized, systematic methods for bioinspired design. These methods include BioTRIZ, an extension of functional modeling for bioinspired design, engineering-to-biology keyword translation tools, and specialized design tools like DANE and SAPPHIRE. These organized methods are currently active research efforts. Traditionally, however, bioinspired design has been conducted without the benefit of any organized method. Without the support of formal methods, designers have relied on the “directed method” of bioinspired design. The directed method approach simply directs designers to consider how nature might approach a problem in order to help designers find solutions. This paper presents an experiment to explore the impact upon idea generation of simply contemplating how nature would solve a design problem. This experiment is foundationally important to bioinspired engineering design method research. The results of this experiment serve as a fundamental baseline and benchmark for the comparison of more systematic, and often more involved, bioinspired design methods. A group of 121 novice designers are given one of two design problems and instructed to either generate solutions using the “directed method,” considering how nature would solve the problem, or to generate solutions without being prompted to use any method. Based on the findings presented here, the directed method offers designers no advantage in the average number of non-redundant ideas the designers can produce, the average quality of their solutions, the average solution novelty, or the variety of solutions proposed. Overall, this investigation finds no significant difference in idea generation between the directed method and the control condition. In conclusion, systematic and organized methods for bioinspired design should instead be sought to effectively leverage nature’s design knowledge.

scholarly journals VALUE OF LANGUAGE BACKGROUND ON IDEA GENERATION SESSIONS IN FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN TEAMS

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Kinnear ◽  
Patricia Sheridan ◽  
Doug Reeve ◽  
Greg Evans
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
First Year ◽  
Classroom Organization ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Multilingual Students ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Current Student ◽  
The Impact

 Abstract – An ongoing debate around classroom organization decisions, particularly with regard to team formation, involves the value associated with team-member diversity. Diversity can be defined, for example, in terms of discipline, marks, race, gender, language, age, experience, or goals. For the researchers in this case, this debate around the impact of diversity motivated further analysis of just what, if any, impact linguistic diversity had on teams in first-year engineering design courses. This is of particular concern given the dramatic increase in the percentage of multilingual students that make up current student bodies across Canada. Our analysis indicates that the effect of having non-native speakers of English (NNSE) on a team is not a de facto detriment to idea generation and discussions within the team. Thus, this paper reports on the effects of multilingualism on team dynamics and idea generation. The authors present here a subset of the data from of a much larger study on effective teamwork behaviours, that highlights two multilingual dominant teams from the larger study. The analysis examines how multilingualism and values associated with it contributed to and developed an integrated understanding of both the problem being addressed and potential solutions to that problem.

How Engineering Design Students’ Creative Preferences and Cognitive Styles Impact Their Concept Generation and Screening

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Heininger ◽  
Hong-En Chen ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Risk Tolerance ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
The Impact

The flow of creative ideas throughout the engineering design process is essential for innovation. However, few studies have examined how individual traits affect problem-solving behaviors in an engineering design setting. Understanding these behaviors will enable us to guide individuals during the idea generation and concept screening phases of the engineering design process and help support the flow of creative ideas through this process. As a first step towards understanding these behaviors, we conducted an exploratory study with 19 undergraduate engineering students to examine the impact of individual traits, using the Preferences for Creativity Scale (PCS) and Kirton’s Adaption-Innovation inventory (KAI), on the creativity of the ideas generated and selected for an engineering design task. The ideas were rated for their creativity, quality, and originality using Amabile’s consensual assessment technique. Our results show that the PCS was able to predict students’ propensity for creative concept screening, accounting for 74% of the variation in the model. Specifically, team centrality and influence and risk tolerance significantly contributed to the model. However, PCS was unable to predict idea generation abilities. On the other hand, cognitive style, as measured by KAI, predicted the generation of creative and original ideas, as well as one’s propensity for quality concept screening, although the effect sizes were small. Our results provide insights into individual factors impacting undergraduate engineering students’ idea generation and selection.

scholarly journals Visual Inspection or Product Dissection? The Impact of Designer-Product Interactions on Engineering Design Creativity

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Visual Inspection ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Controlled Study ◽  
Creative Thought ◽  
Design Creativity ◽  
Product Interaction ◽  
The Impact

Designers commonly interact with products in the early phases of design in order to understand the solution space and gain inspiration for new designs. Although designer-product interaction methods such as visual inspection and product dissection are recognized as a pivotal component of the engineering design process, little data is available on how these practices affect idea generation or when these activities are most useful for inspiring creative thought. Therefore, the current study was developed to understand the impact of these activities on creative idea generation. During our controlled study, fifty-nine undergraduate engineering students were instructed to either visually inspect or physically dissect an example milk frother and then generate ideas for a new, innovative design. These concepts were then evaluated for their novelty, variety, quality and quantity. Our analysis (ANOVA) revealed that participants who physically dissected the example frother produced ideas that were more novel but of lower quality than those that simply inspected the frother. Our results provide insights on the impact of designer-product interactions on creativity and we use these findings to develop recommendations for the use and alterations of these practices for improving creativity in engineering design.

Evaluating the Directed Intuitive Approach for Bioinspired Design

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Glier ◽  
Joanna Tsenn ◽  
Julie S. Linsey ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Design Methods ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Bioinspired Design ◽  
Engineering Problems ◽  
Novice Designers ◽  
The Impact

Bioinspired design, the practice of looking to nature to find inspiration for solutions to engineering problems, is increasingly a desired approach to design. It allows designers to tap a wealth of time-tested solutions to difficult problems in a domain less considered by designers. Only recently have researchers developed organized, systematic methods for bioinspired design. Traditionally, bioinspired design has been conducted without the benefit of any organized method. Designers relied on the informal “directed intuitive approach” of bioinspired design, which simply directs designers to consider how nature might solve a problem. This paper presents an experiment to explore the impact of the directed approach on idea generation. This experiment is foundationally important to bioinspired engineering design method research. The results of this experiment serve as a fundamental baseline and benchmark for the comparison of more systematic, and often more involved, bioinspired design methods. A group of 121 novice designers are given one of two design problems and instructed to either generate solutions using the directed approach or to generate solutions without being prompted in any additional fashion. Based on the findings presented here, the directed approach offers designers no advantage in the average number of nonredundant ideas, quality, novelty, or variety of the solutions produced. In conclusion, systematic and organized methods for bioinspired design should be sought to effectively leverage nature's design knowledge.

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