Promoting Creativity in Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Courses

Promoting Creativity in Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Courses César Cárdenas Mechatronics Department Raúl Moysen, Ricardo Sosa Industrial Design Department

Approaches to creativity

Talks about creativity and innovation

Workshops on creative techniques

A module on creativity (4 weeks)

Courses on creative techniques for engineers

Total immersion of engineering & design students in highly creative environments: multidisciplinary projects

5 engineering courses: Diseño de sistemas embebidos Proyecto integral de tecnologías digitales Proyecto integral de tecnologías electrónicas Proyecto integrador de tecnologías electrónicas I-II 7 industrial design studios: Proyecto de diseño industrial (1-7) Aim: compulsory multidisciplinary courses (years 2 to 4)

So far: Proyecto integral de tecnologías electrónicas + Proyecto de diseño industrial 5 (Social-based products and services) 40+ students in multidisciplinary teams (3 to 4)

3 stages: social needs, concept generation and project development Social Intelligence Design: “integrate and understand the interactions between designing and social intelligence”

Project themes (stage 1):

Employment, security, health, sustainability, education, transport...

Rapid ethnographic techniques

Aim: creative problem formulation

(Also, the most problematic stage for engineering students)

Concept generation (stage 2)

Divergent creative thinking

Extensive state of the art

SID viewpoint: must include a community

Project development (stage 3)

- Functional prototype (arduino)

- Mock-up models (video, rapid prototyping)

- Project report

URBAN REFLECTOR: Social Integration of Homeless Children

MaCaCo: Social Intelligence (empathy) for Children

We.Share: Give a Ride against Global Warming (carpooling)

RUEDAS: Social-based Energy Transformation System for the Daily Shopping

JIT-Eat: Social and Technological Approach to Reduce Waiting Time Perception in Malls

Wireless solution for pedestrian education and social dynamics

RAUSID: Social-based Radio Frequency Assistant in Urban Zones

Bracelet D: Against Eating Disorders

ICNELIA: Social Intelligence for Toursim

TAI: A Social-Aided Transport System for the Blind and Visually Disabled

A Social Approach to Increasing Energy Consumption Awareness in Families

YUNIT: Family Emotional Communication Wireless System

Plug-It: A Social-based Health Monitoring System for Sports

The Shopping Game: A Social Interactive Ecological Experience

Energy Container: A Social-based Energy Generation System

PETRO: A Community-based Recycling System

Safe Access: Protecting your kids

Joby: Employability module for workers who don’t have access to technology

RIC: Recycle Intelligence

Attending students’ emotions

Engineers become anxious in the first stages

Industrial Designers are systematically creative

Potential user evaluation of prototypes

Social design theme keeps high motivation

Projects with social impact emerge naturally

Collaboration across departments

External evaluations

Potential for business incubation

Self-perception of learning (innovation) Engineering students’ self-perception of innovation is better than industrial design students' Eng. Answers % Eng. Answers Ind. D. Answers % Ind. D. Answers 1 0 0 1 4 2 0 0 1 4 3 2 9 2 10 4 4 17 4 17 5 17 74 15 65

Self-perception of learning (creativity) Design students have a slightly better self-perception of creativity than innovation Eng. Answers % Eng. Answers Ind. D. Answers % Ind. D. Answers 1 0 0 1 4 2 0 0 1 4 3 1 4 1 4 4 4 18 2 10 5 18 78 18 78

Current & future work