In recent years there has been a lot of talk about technical debt in various fields. Technical debt is the cost that an individual or a group of people will incur in future for hasty decisions in the present, which are often motivated by lack of resources and/or time. Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash […]

Photography courtesy of Peter Rosso As a first line of defence against the spread of COVID-19 the facemask, a simple covering worn to reduce the spread of infectious agents, has affected the lives of billions across the globe. An estimated 129 billion facemasks are used every month, of which, most are designed for single use. […]

The DMF lab recently (remotely) attended the International Conference of Engineering Design (ICED) 2021 to present seven papers. One of these, authored by Chris Cox, Ben Hicks and James Gopsill, investigates the new language surrounding the paradigm shift towards digital engineering. This presentation was shown at ICED 2021 as part of the “Digital Twins” panel, […]

Prototyping is an indispensable activity in the product development process but what does prototyping practice in industry look like? In this video we take a ‘snapshot’ of prototyping practice from 5 companies to see how practice has evolved and understand what the characteristics of industrial practices are. This work was presented at the International Conference […]

What are the differences in performance and usability of digitisation techniques?  In this video we compare two such methods; photogrammetry and structured light scanning. For more details please see the full paper on the link here https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-design-society/article/comparison-of-structured-light-scanning-and-photogrammetry-for-the-digitisation-of-physical-prototypes/66038D84EF1A45F22F601B899EFC0D25. This work was presented at the International Conference of Engineering Design (ICED) 2021. 

The IDEA (International Design Engineering Annual) Challenge just completed its first iteration! Inspired by current events, this year’s participants competed to develop a novel vaccine transport system to aid in the distribution of vaccines across rural Colombia. Fourteen participants from across four institutions participated. Over the course of four days, the groups worked hard to […]

Prototyping constitutes a wide range of methods spanning both physical and digital domains, each with their respective benefits and drawbacks. Different methods are used in the product development process (PDP) to generate knowledge about both the problem and design solution. A key ingredient to successful product development is ensuring that the right knowledge about the product is […]

The Design Manufacturing Futures Lab has published and presented its first paper entitled “Quantum Combinatoral Design” exploring the potential of applying Quantum Computing to Engineering Design problems. This was published and presented at the International Conference on Engineering Design 2021 (ICED21)

Written by Louise Larsson Summary of project and intended outcomes In my individual research project this term I investigated potential alternative user interfaces for computer-aided design, CAD, software and brain-computer interfaces in particular. That is looking into the prospects of making designing more intuitive and accessible by introducing brain control to the design process in […]