Design Creativity 2010 part 29 potx

Design Education A Creativity Environment for Educational Engineering Projects when Developing an Innovative Product: A Case Study Karl Hain, Christoph Rappl and Markus Fraundorfer The

The Complementary Role of Representations in Design Creativity: Sketches and Models 269

In contrast, our results show that the higher the

time investment in model-making, the final ideas tend

to be of higher quality, i.e., a correlation is observed

between models and functional requirement

satisfaction These two outcomes could suggest an

apparent trade-off in the design process, where these

two early activities must be carefully balanced

depending on the goals of the project Future studies

could explore the causal interactions between physical

modeling and functionality measures of early idea

generation

Figure 7 illustrates the main insight found in this

study; namely, that sketching is as a suitable

representation aid for the originality component of

creativity, whilst realistic models and prototypes are

media more suitable for the functionality component

of creativity Two implications are worth studying in

future efforts: would more concrete drawings such as

blueprints be more suitable for functionality? and

would low-fidelity "dirty" models be more appropriate

for originality?

This preliminary study targeted design student

activity judged by a small panel of design teachers

Future work will extend these limits to distinguish

between novice and expert design practitioners, while

the assessments could integrate industry evaluation

practices to achieve higher validity Future studies will

target the following hypothesis: “sketching supports

originality and physical modelling supports

functionality in the creative design process”

The results of this study further suggest that the design curriculum should incorporate the key competency of choosing between abstract representations such as sketching and material representations such as model-making for ideation (Brereton, 2004) The implications for design practice include the insight that creativity seems to be more independent from any single representation mode than previously imagined Role-assignment in design teams determined by disciplinary background or skill proficiency may be questioned Instead, new design practices may be necessary to generate, transform and evaluate ideas across representations in order to explore the space of solutions

In the long term, this research aims to develop evidence-based teaching approaches and professional-level toolkits for practitioners that specifically aid in the generation and communication of ideas in early design stages

In addition, further research work is necessary to explore the role of other types of representations used

in the early stages of design, such as language (Nagai, year) In concrete, the role of language articulation and its interplay with sketching and modeling could be studied in creative design Just as a combination of sketching and modelling skills are beneficial for creativity, we may speculate that more articulate and polyglot designers may be in advantage for creativity over their more reserved and monolingual colleagues

Fig 7 Design creativity representations

270 A Acuna and R Sosa

References

Bilda Z, Gero JS, Purcell T, (2006) To sketch or not to

sketch? That is the question Design Studies 27(5): 587–

613

Brereton MF, (2004) Distributed Cognition in Engineering

Design: Negotiating between abstract and material

representations In Goldschmidt G, William L, Porter

(Ed.), Design Representation 1 ed.: 83-103, London:

Springer

Buxton B, (2007) Sketching User Experiences: Getting the

Design Right and the Right Design Morgan Kaufmann

Corson B, (2010) Sustainable Design as a Sustained

Upstream Effort International Journal of Engineering

Education 26(2): 260–264

Cropley A, (1999) Definitions of Creativity In SR Pritzker,

MA Runco, (Eds), Encyclopedia of Creativity, Academic

Press

Gebhardt A, (2003) Rapid Prototyping Hanser Publishers

Goodman N, (1976) Languages of Art Hackett Publishing

Company

National Association of Schools of Art and Design

Handbook 2009-10: October 2009 Edition:

http://nasad.arts-accredit.org

Prats M, Garner S, (2006) Observations on Ambiguity in

Design Sketches Tracey the Online Journal of

Contemporary Drawing Research: 1–7

Ramduny-Ellis D, Hare J, Dix A, Gill S, (2009) Exploring Physicality in the Design Process In: Undisciplined! Design Research Society Conference 2008, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK, 16-19 July

Sosa R, (2005) Computational Explorations of Creativity and Innovation in Design PhD Dissertation, The University

of Sydney Australia http://hdl.handle.net/2123/614 Taura T, Nagai Y, Morita J, Takeuchi T, (2007) Study of design creativity using a linguistic interpretation process

to characterize types of thinking ICED’07 16th International Conference of Engineering Design, Paris, France

Verganti R, (2009) Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean Harvard Business Press

Visser W, (2006) Designing as Construction of Representations Human-Computer Interaction, Special Issue "Foundations of Design in HCI" 21(1):103–152 Yang MC, Cham JG, (2007) An Analysis of Sketching Skill and its Role in Early Stage Engineering Design ASME Journal of Mechanical Design 129(5): 476–482

Yang MC, (2009) Observations on concept generation and sketching in design Research in Engineering Design 20(1):1–11

Design Education

A Creativity Environment for Educational Engineering Projects when Developing an Innovative Product:

A Case Study

Karl Hain, Christoph Rappl and Markus Fraundorfer

The Metaphor of an Ensemble: Design Creativity as Skill Integration

Newton S D’souza

Coaching the Cognitive Processes of Inventive Problem Solving with a Computer

Niccolò Becattini, Yuri Borgianni, Gaetano Cascini and Federico Rotini

Creative Engineering Design Aspects given in a Creativity Training Course

Joaquim Lloveras, Miguel-Angel Saiz, Carlos García-Delgado, Jairo Chaur, Lluis Claudí,

Anna Barlocci and Laura Carnicero

A Creativity Environment for Educational Engineering Projects when

Developing an Innovative Product: A Case Study

Karl Hain1, Christoph Rappl1 and Markus Fraundorfer2

1 University of Applied Sciences, Germany

2 Inoutic / Deceuninck GmbH, Germany

Abstract This article presents a unified approach in

engineering design education in the faculty of Mechanical

Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Applied

Sciences, Deggendorf, Germany The described approach

aims at providing undergraduate students a creativity

stimulating environment by means of specific guidelines for

conducting engineering design projects which are

compulsory within their studies The proposed structure is

based on existing design methodologies having the

possibility of embedding proper creativity techniques along

the course of projects Eventually, by taking advantage of the

proposed guideline frame, a case study for the development

of an innovative product is described

Keywords: Creativity and Innovation, Engineering Design

Education, Design Methodology

1 Design Methodology / TRIZ

The theory of a systematic respectively methodical

design has been sufficiently worked out and outlined

in literature and publications According e.g to (Pahl

and Beitz, 2007) the design process utilizes several

stages, beginning with the clarification of the task,

followed by a conceptual design phase, an

embodiment design phase and ending with detail

design (Fig 1) which finally results into a mechanical,

electromechanical, hydraulic or pneumatic

respectively combined structure of the product A

mechatronic system is characterized by the additional

integration of sensors providing input parameters for

an information processing unit, and actuators to

implement necessary effects on the basic system (Hain

et al., 2008) Within specific design stages several aids

and methods are applicable and recommended to

incorporate into the design process Actually design

methodology describes a linear process, however,

having the possibility for design loops at every design

stage The process itself is described on a high level,

therefore quite abstract in order to fit every possible

design task independent of any discipline

Fig 1 Design methodology

The inventive problem solving method TRIZ (Fig 2) was developed by analyzing thousands of patents thus developing knowledge of different kinds of contradictions and means of overcoming them More abstract insight were also identified and confirmed through repetition in multiple cases, for instance, the strategy of separating contradictory properties in space

or time or the principle of preparatory action TRIZ can be viewed as producing three important outputs, First, and at the lowest conceptual level, the methodology includes a substantial set of physical effects and devices that inventors can be use to achieve particular purposes, i.e a compendium of stock solutions or raw materials for innovations involving physical phenomena; second, at a middle level of abstraction, a wealth of heuristic has been identified that innovators can learn and apply Some of these – change the state of the physical property; introduce a second substance, for instance – are tied to the kinds of physical inventions and patents which were studied Others are more general Do it inversely; do a little less; fragmentation / consolidation; ideal final result;

274 K Hain, C Rappl and M Fraundorfer

and model with miniature dwarfs; all can be applied

with socio-technical systems and other problems that

are solved at the chemistry and physics level

(Shavinina and Larisa, 2003, Klein, 2002) Some of

these heuristics have been identified in other fields,

e.g forcing an object to serve multiple functions, the

value of incorporating multiple objects into one

system, looking for analogies in other areas etc are

standard design strategies and have long been

recognized

Fig 2 TRIZ – inventive problem solving

2 Design Projects in Education

A commonly agreed goal and challenge in engineering

education is to improve the efficiency of product

development processes, to enhance students project

experience, to make them familiar with appropriate

creativity techniques and skills to master the

complexity of products in terms of innovation,

invention and problem solving However, instructors

face the question of how to provide a creativity

stimulating environment, how to structure the process

at all, how to deliver and request information in an

appropriate manner The following presents a model

for students and lecturers as well how to manage

design projects and how to proceed and interact (Fig

3) Although every design project is different, certain

types of projects may have comparable features The

approach aims at combining important aspects of

existing design methodologies and creativity

techniques with an appropriate organisational

structure It is supposed to represent a guideline for

undergraduate students conducting one or two semester long senior design projects in mechanical engineering and mechatronics These student groups work very often together at projects which supports the interdisciplinary approaches to design challenges Project ideas ideally emerge from intense cooperation with local enterprises thus getting university approaches validated by case studies from industry (Hain and Rappl, 2010)

Fig 3 Structuring engineering design projects

The guideline project structure was designed in consideration of the following: Engineering design education is mainly based on practical studies represented by engineering design projects Students

A Creativity Environment for Educational Engineering Projects when Developing an Innovative Product: A Case Study 275

have by nature less up to none project experience and

lack in general the ability to define a problem at all

They don’t have much experience in using creativity

techniques and developing solutions Furthermore they

have weak work documentation habits, even so the

importance of written communication skills has long

been recognized A comprehensive and tailored design

methodology is commonly agreed to be the base for an

innovative design, as creativity can result from a

systematic approach by increasing the likelihood of

obtaining a “best” solution and making engineering

design fully learnable For beginners however, a

systematic approach is difficult because of the variety

of design methodologies and creativity techniques In

general design processes are described on an abstract

level, the cycles are often confusing and don’t provide

clarity, which precise path should be followed and

which methods be applied Furthermore no

information is given about involved personnel, time

consumption, necessary actions, evaluations or

decisions to be taken, etc The proposed structure is

intended to overcome certain shortages recognized

when conducting student design projects The key

features respectively activities are:

 Involved personnel (P)

 Project status: meetings (M1 to M5)

 Homework stages (H1 to H4)

 Produced documents (D1 to D4)

 Design checklists (C1 to Cx)

 Time schedule (T)

The following checklists are delivered to students and

recommended for use along the course of a project:

 Brainstorming guideline

 Setting up a specification list

 Problem abstraction, black-box representation

 Setting up a function structure

 Morphological matrix / compatibility matrix

 Classification scheme parameters list

 TRIZ: Ideal Final Result (IFR)

 TRIZ: Operator Material, Time, Space, Cost

(OP-MTSC)

 TRIZ: Smart Little People (SLP)

 TRIZ: Anticipatory Failure Determ (AFD)

 TRIZ: Conflict Matrix (CM)

 TRIZ: Top Ten Inventive Principles (T10IP)

 TRIZ: Forty Inventive Principles (40IP)

 TRIZ: Four Separation principles (4SP)

 Design catalogues overview on request

 Evaluation methods

In the case of original designs especially the

TRIZ-methods IFR, OP-MTSC, SLP and 4SP are suggested

to use initially, in the case of adaptive respectively

variant designs the methods T10IP, CM, 40IP, AFD are mostly applicable

3 Case Study – An Innovative Product

3.1 The Overall Concept

The following describes some steps of the systematic design of an innovative window system, i.e puts theory into practice The innovative window is to allow the Opening / Closing / Aerating without having

to open or tilt the window separately (Patent, 2006, Europäische Patentanmeldung, 2009) The window casement, which is mounted to a frame by hinges, is kept in place while several states are operated The basic functionality is a controllable mechanism for automated locking and simultaneous sealing realized

by moveable locking strips in the frame and a mating profile in the casement The system is intended to take

up 3 states (Fig 4) while the operation time between the changing of states shall not exceed 5 seconds The project comprises the realization of mechanical and electrical components and also a logic system control (Hain et al., 2008) In this research the development of

a specific mechanical subsystem is pointed out

Fig 4 Excerpts of patent and required functionality

276 K Hain, C Rappl and M Fraundorfer

Based on the initially elaborated specifications list the

required functions and essential constraints were

identified Then an abstraction and overall problem

formulation was aspired by omitting requirements that

have no direct bearing on the function Fig 5 (upper)

describes the generalized overall task with inputs and

outputs which led to a definition of the objective on an

abstract plane, without laying down any particular

solution

Fig 5 Function structure, schemes and methods

Taking this definition for granted an initial so-called

didactic brainstorming session was hold so that not all

constraints were strictly taken into account, e.g energy

supply, geometric limitations, space constraints,

budget demands etc In this phase TRIZ-methods Ideal

Final Result (IFR), Operator MTSC, Smart Little

People (SLP) and Top Ten Inventive Principles (Fig

6) were integrated The outcome was a lot of partly

quite different solution concepts, e.g the usage of

single/multiple drives (electric / hydraulic / pneumatic)

and flexible (e.g ropes, cords etc.) respectively

un-flexible (e.g shafts, rods etc.) connectors, furthermore

a lot of different types of mechanisms for lifting

respectively pulling down the locking strips It shall be

annotated, that a clear definition of sub-functions

depends to a high degree on the number of imaginable

overall conceptual designs Therefore, after a first evaluation procedure the multiple drive solutions, i.e separate drives for each locking strip, were discarded because of budget reasons, furthermore the usage of several solenoids because of frame space restrictions

An ideal system was considered to consist of only one electric drive which actuates the whole mechanism to take up 3 states

Fig 6 TRIZ - top ten inventive principles (T10IP)

Based on these prerequisites the establishment of a function structure was aspired It is supposed to represent a clear definition of existing sub-systems with decreasing complexity, so that they can be dealt with separatedly which facilitates the subsequent search for solutions The main function was decomposed into 5 individual sub-functions and logically arranged by the use of block diagrams (Fig

5, upper) The relevant input/output flows of energy, material and signals are also indicated In this case electrical energy is provided and incoming and outgoing signals control the whole window operation process

The next step was to set up one morphological matrix as a guiding scheme for the overall task Such a scheme enumerates all solutions for known functions (Zwicky, 1976), even if specific sub-functions required a more intense examination by the means of so-called classification schemes (Pahl and Beitz, 2007; Grabowski and Hain, 1997) Several of them were drawn up simultaneously to record conceived solutions and to allow the generation of further ones (Fig 5, lower) The usually two-dimensional scheme consists of rows and columns of parameters used as classifying criteria which the designer has to determine The final depictions represent comprehensive collections of solutions which later on can serve as design catalogues for repeated use After analyzing all sub-functions with respect to their anticipated importance the sub-function

A Creativity Environment for Educational Engineering Projects when Developing an Innovative Product: A Case Study 277

No.5 turned out to be the most essential one thus was

strongly focused upon

3.2 Working Out a Specific Subfunction

Cotrolled up/down movement: It represents a

sub-system whose outputs cross the assumed overall

boundary It is good practice to start from these and

then determine the inputs and outputs for the

neighboring functions, i.e work from the system

boundary inwards Its output is the effective energy for

lifting up respectively pulling down the closure strips

The input energy must be provided by an electric drive

via an appropriate connection Therefore, the

classifying criteria for the columns were determined to

be “Basic horizontal drive mechanism” and “Vertical

up/down movement” for the rows (Fig 5, lower)

which was extended by a further breakdown of

characteristics First basic ideas were integrated and

new ideas produced subsequently by means of

systematic variation, i.e type, shape, position, size,

number and several TRIZ-methods Promising solution

concepts were detailed in order to analyse them

carefully with respect to meet the requirement of a

forced change of positions and to take them up in a

correct order After an evaluation process one working

principle was considered being worth for further

detailing (Fig 7)

Fig 7 Working principle for relevant subfunction

Based on this obviously feasible working principle the

connection between the rope and the sliding elements

turned out to be the most important and challenging

task to be solved in order to guarantee eventually the

realization of the whole concept An essential

mounting requirement for that sub-function had to be

obeyed, namely the precondition of having the drive and rope already installed circumferentially within the frame and setting the pre-assembled eight lifting units afterwards in position within the window frame (Fig 8) This required the mounting of the lifting elements directly onto the bottom of the window frame along a vertical direction and connecting them to the steel cord preferably with standard tools (screwdriver, wrench, allen wrench, etc.) In order to broaden the solution spectrum several inventive design principles proposed

by TRIZ were taken systematically into consideration

Fig 8 Assembling requirements

Variants 01/02: To find solutions for that specific

sub-task, that is, reliable force transfer (input / output) into the lifting elements, another so-called didactic brainstorming session was hold whereby not all constraints were outlined at the beginning, e.g specific mounting directions, space constraints The outcome essentially was several solution concepts which are commonly known: Set the rope indirectly under pressure between two plates with a screw; use a screw with a cone end which puts pressure directly onto the rope, etc (Fig 9)

Fig 9 Initial solution principles (No 01 / No 02)

278 K Hain, C Rappl and M Fraundorfer

These preliminary results were additionally inspired by

TRIZ-IP-06 “Universality – Make a part or object

perform multiple functions; eliminate the need for

other parts”

Variants 03/04: Further ideas had to be produced

having the possibility to use a standard tool vertically

to put the rope under pressure in order to connect it

with the sliding element The solution No.3 (Fig 10,

left) was directly derived from the initial variant No.01

by changing the mounting direction for the screw from

horizontal to vertical The tightening of the screw

leads to a vertical tensile stress of portions of geometry

thus to horizontal movements of deformable wings

which then effect pressure on the rope The elastic

behaviour of the wings, which are part of the sliding

element, is supported by slotting the area between the

wings and the remaining block Variant No.04 (Fig

10, right) represents the outcome of applying

TRIZ-IP-04, which recommends “Asymmetry - Change the

shape of an object from symmetrical to asymmetrical;

if an object is asymmetrical, increase its degree of

asymmetry” Therefore No.04 is similar to No.03

having only an asymmetrical layout It features a

screw which pulls a wing against its steady counterpart

and therefore pressurizes the rope

Fig 10 Solution principles (No.03 / No.04)

Variants 05/06: These variants (Fig 11) were

stimulated by applying the TRIZ-IP-06 “Universality”

(see No.01/02) and particularly TRIZ-IP-10

“Preliminary action - Perform, before it is needed, the

required change of an object either fully or partially;

principle of preparatory action; do it in advance”

Taking this as a guiding idea, the elastic wings are

geometrically designed and dimensioned so that a

pre-tension is generated The screw then is actually no

more required when the system is operated The coned

and headless set screw presses the wings apart before

the sliding units are installed and can be completely

removed afterwards Other ideas based on this

TRIZ-principle were produced like “pre-process the rope in

order to get better connection qualities”, “pre-connect

the sliding elements and rope before putting them into

the frame” etc The solution principle No.06 was developed by taking advantage again of TRIZ-IP-04

“Asymmetry”, where just one wing is pressed aside by

a set screw

Fig 11 Solution principles (No.05 / No.06)

Variants 07/08: TRIZ-IP-01 recommends the

“Segmentation - Divide an object into independent parts; make an object easy to disassemble; increase the degree of fragmentation or segmentation” In order to follow this design rule the required connection mechanism was divided into several parts, e.g two levers and pins which serve as axles for the levers (Fig 12, left) Force is applied by means of a set screw having effect on the levers at one side The transfered force then causes pressure onto the rope Depending

on the dimensioning the pressure is possibly increased

by the leverage effect Actually the TRIZ-IP-24 was used simultaneously, which says “Intermediary - Use

an intermediary carrier article or intermediary process” In this case the intermediary carrier is represented by the levers, which transfer the applied mounting force to the required position near to the bottom of the window frame The solution principle No.08 (Fig 12, right) was worked out by taking again advantage of TRIZ-IP-04 “Asymmetry”, where just one lever is pressed against the rope via a set screw

Fig 12 Solution principles (No.07 / No.08 )