Mixed Reality (MR) technologies have emerged as potential game-changers in the design landscape, offering a dynamic blend of physical and virtual elements. Designers are increasingly drawn to MR for its potential to elevate, enrich, and expedite prototyping endeavors. One intriguing aspect is MR’s ability to deceive our senses, bridging the gap between the virtual and […]

In Spring 2023 I found out that I was successful in my application to the Researcher in Residence programme to develop the Physical-Digital Affordance Index (PDAI) in collaboration with the Digital Catapult (DC).  As technology develops, we are increasing moving many aspects of our lives, both design specifically and more generally, into the digital realm […]

I returned to visit la Universidad de Los Andes (Uniandes) in August this year after a pandemic induced hiatus. Prior to 2020, we had been working with Uniandes to develop proposals to do with agritech and transdisciplinary engineering. During the pandemic we were able to manage some collaboration through project clean access (leading to a […]

Written by Michael Wyrley-Birch, one of our excellent summer interns. Over the past few weeks, I have been experimenting with different methods of real time 6D pose estimation for generic objects to allow for realistic digital versions of products to be mapped onto low fidelity prototypes. The different methods include: Using ArUco markers Using a […]

Written by Mike Wharton, one of our excellent summer interns. I’m now about a third of the way through my project, having dived head-first into the world of haptics. There were a number of interesting tangents and discoveries along the way, and unexpected links to psychology and audio equipment.  Haptic or tactile means “related to […]

The DMF lab had their usual strong showing at the major conference for the research field last week, presenting 9 papers across topics ranging from prototyping to machine learning to neurocognition! This year the International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED) was held in beautiful Bordeaux, which blessed us with excellent weather, warm evenings, and one […]

Setting the stage to show the community our technical capabilities and upcoming research, this week the 21CP team exhibited a range of demos at the ICED 2023 conference! We had three sets of demos up and running for attendees to try: Design in VR: Aman led the charge with a demo showing the different ways […]

The IDEA challenge returned in May 2023 for its third iteration! This time it was hosted by the University of Zagreb and building on the success of the the challenge’s first two iterations was set to be bigger and better than ever! The challenge saw teams working fully virtually to develop a CubeSat satellite that […]

This year we’re lucky enough to have three summer interns working with us on the 21st Century Prototyping project. They’ve got a great range of skills – one mechanical engineer, one computer scientist, and one engineering designer – and excellent past experience in a range of industries. They’ll be working on building our toolkit and […]