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Understanding and constructing domain-specific external representations, such as kinematic diagrams, is an important goal of engineering education. International standards (ISO 3952-1) prescribe their format in terms of graphical elements in black and white and two dimensions. However, during training, the canonical format is often modified under the assumption that it facilitates learning and comprehension of motion. The question arises as to whether understanding movement from kinematic diagrams shows format effects (Colour code and Projection), i.e. facilitation of colour and 3D projection, at different levels of engineering education. In the present study, we investigated understanding of movement from kinematic diagrams used as static graphical representations of a mechanism. 132 graduate and undergraduate students of French engineering schools took part in the experiment. According to the expectations of the multimedia model, we found a main effect of Projection and Colour code on understanding movement from kinematic diagrams. Higher understanding was found for polychrome diagrams using three-dimensional projection. Furthermore, an interaction between Colour code and Level of study indicated fading of format effect regarding colour with recent training and practice. Following this finding, the role of level of study and recentness of using rule-based graphical representations are discussed. The study showed the importance of format and student characteristics for understanding graphical representations in engineering education.

A new application for virtually simulating assembly tasks was developed by integrating multimodal data and kinematic information provided by a mobility module into a Collaborative Virtual Environment. During assembly simulations, the haptic device implemented in the application supports the user’s movements by using the automatically detected kinematic constraints between the components of the assembly. Thus, all stages of the assembly process can be simulated, which leads to an increase of the user immersion. The current paper presents the methodology, the protocols and the results of evaluating the application, the test being performed by a group of 20 participants. Tasks were run for assessing the following criteria: usability, efficiency, ease of use and quality of the haptic feedback. Each participant tested the application for two types of assemblies (mounting flange and standard vise) with different complexity and number of components. Testing protocols considered both objective evaluation (using real-time information), as well as subjective evaluation using questionnaires. The analysis of the results proved the feasibility of the proposed approach. Further work will be focused on extensive studies for assessing intra-users variations and improvement of the haptic feedback for a number of particular situations reported by users as important.

Considering the growing change towards material simplicity of consumers which consists in rejecting the consumer society by decreasing material needs and their consumption we interrogate in this research the possibility of products to support its transition of consumers. We address in a matrix product characteristics adaptation to pathways of consumers stemming from non-voluntary to radical disadopters. The main question of this work interrogates how products can address the disadoption/material simplicity phenomenon.

PurposeThe paper aims to present the processing pipeline of an assembly immersive simulation application which can manage the interaction between the virtual scene and user using stereoscopic display and haptic devices. A new set of elements are integrated in a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) and validated using an approach based on subjective and objective users’ performance criteria. The developed application is intended for Assembly/Disassembly (A/D) analysis, planning and training.Design/methodology/approachA mobility module based on contact information is used to handle the assembly components’ movements through real-time management of collision detection and kinematically constraint guidance. Information on CVE architecture, modules and application configuration process are presented. Impact of device type (3 degrees of freedom (DoFs) vs 6 DoFs) over user’s experience is evaluated. Parameters (number of assembled components and components assembly time) are measured for each user and each haptic device, and results are compared and discussed.FindingsTest results proved the efficiency of using a mobility module based on predefined kinematic constraints for reducing the complexity of collision detection algorithms in real-time assembly haptic simulations. Also, experiments showed that, generally, users performed better with 3 DoFs haptic device compared to 6 DoFs haptic equipment.Originality/valueThe proposed immersive application automates the kinematical joints inference from 3D computer-aided design (CAD) assembly models and integrates it within a haptic-based virtual environment, for increasing the efficiency of A/D process simulations.

In this article, we argue that the low-tech narrative redefined by a French low-tech movement in recent years can be considered as a legitimate research object for design research. Based on the French low-tech movement's literature, we present the definitions of the low-tech concept as an approach driven by principles and highlight two theorical limitations of this type of definition. Based on a value-sensitive design approach, we present transdisciplinary research results through a value-driven low-tech model and discussed its limitations and possible use as a tool for engineers.

The landscape of reuse and repair (R&R) activities for manufactured products is vibrant: new European laws, research projects, local initiatives. Our aim is to capture the current and future challenges of the field through an industrial workshop held at the ICED23 conference. A collective reflection was conducted with three French stakeholders: a Product Responsibility Organization, a social and solidarity organization, and a private company producing water-driven dosing pumps. The study results in a multi-level perspective on the R&R value chain and four R&R future scenarios.

For some years now, a part of the population in Europe has been willing to moderate its consumption and to enter into a sustainable waste reduction perspective. Repair is an important lever in the sustainability of products. It requires appropriate approaches depending on the actors involved, whether they are public, private or at the consumer level. Repair cafés are thus born of local citizen initiatives to act on the life cycle of everyday consumer products. We conducted a qualitative study based on a series of semi-structured interviews with the actors of repair cafés in the Grenoble area (France) and carried out an analysis of qualitative data. This analysis, according to three pre-defined fields, technology-competencies-motivations, reveals the perception of the actors on the current obstacles and opportunities for the development of the amateur repair practice. The results obtained support studies already carried out on the subject and show that design is still failing to match amateur reparation requirements. Besides, the social role of these third places takes precedence over the ecological and economic dimension of repair.

This paper is a first attempt to qualify the design process in the field of MEMS product. Through this study, we try to analyse how the issue of manufacturability is addressed in a context of integrated design. This implies to understand specificities of the manufacturing process involved in the realization of these products (we focus on process derived from VLSI industry). Then we look at the main current design methodologies to understand how the manufacturing is being taken into account. Computer aided tools associated to these methodologies are presented at the same time. Finally, we conclude on the need of specifications for a design methodology that would provide designers with greater independence from manufacturing constraints.

Programming languages have benefited from increased attention lately. With corporations like Google, Facebook and Mozilla investing in language design, there is a lot of activity in the mainstream languages domain. State of the art features like advanced type systems that were only available to more research-centered languages such as Haskell, are now making their way into the mainstream through languages like Rust. Rust is an up-and-coming system programming language that aims to fill the same role as C and C++, but in a much safer way. To achieve this, it brings a rich type system, alongside a pragmatic implementation of region based memory management, a feature that allows safe memory handling without the need of a garbage collector. Aiming for the mainstream, Rust comes with tooling to aid developers in their work. One such tool is Rustdoc, a program that automatically generates documentation based on type information and programmer comments. We aim to enhance Rustdoc to provide more advanced search support through features that are impossible to implement for dynamic languages, and even static languages with less advanced type systems, like C and Go.

This paper presents and discusses a fast and efficient method to study artefact-centric interactions in co-design sessions. The method is particularly useful for exploring the introduction of augmented reality (AR) environments since AR application representations combine both digital content and physical content, transforming the way users interact with the design object. Although protocol analysis is extensively used in cognitive studies of design, it is a time-consuming and cumbersome method and hence unsuitable for extensive analysis in industrial environments. Our real-time coding method makes it possible to perform “on-the-fly” coding of physical interactions in co-design sessions. Focusing on quantifying interaction occurrences, our results are consistent with those obtained with post-session coding. Internal validity was assessed using relevant statistical tests. Based on the data collected in co-design sessions we show how aggregate results, especially timelines and interaction densities, can be displayed rapidly at the end of each session. This research paves the way for a more general implementation of real-time coding of collaborative work sessions in industrial situations.