to the design of artifacts and environments for people.
Designing for Human Variability is offered again for the Fall 2009 semester. Students learn the principles of how to incorporate an understanding of variability in human size, capability, and preference into the design of products and environments. It is a unique opportunity to explore material from engineering, statistics, biomechanics, disability and aging research, and business in the context of design problems.
The Iron Lion Design Challenge II took place in May. In the second year of the Challenge, it grew to 13 students and many faculty and industry collaborators, who collaborated on a variety of design projects, including a universally-designed portable appliance and an improved gripper, among others.
myAnthro - Basic is available in the Apple iTunes App Store. myAnthro is an iPhone app created by Dr. Parkinson for easily determining body dimensions derived from proportionality constants, a design tool employed in the Open Design Lab. Find more information by visiting Dr. Parkinson's myAnthro page.Featured Recent Publication
Simpson, T. W., Hunter, S. T., Bryant-Arnold, C., Parkinson, M. B., Barton, R. R., Celento, D., and Messner, J. (2009). Interdisciplinary graduate design programs: Results and recommendations from a NSF workshop. ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences. DETC2009-86699.
Improving the creativity and innovativeness of U.S. graduate students is a mandate for national competitiveness and social well-being. Despite this imperative, many are uncertain about how to best prepare students for tackling the complex design problems of the future, some that we know about and others yet to be uncovered. With this in mind, we convened a two-day workshop at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, VA to discuss the challenges, successes, and future directions for [ read more ]