It's an Art

Engineers can - and must be - creative. They just need to be taught how says Steve Stott, education programme manager of Autodesk

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

Traditional education has a lot to answer for.  The age-old divide between arts and sciences means that "artists" fall into the trap of thinking they are incapable of being practical - and "scientists" that they just "don't do" creativity.

Yet practicality and creativity are needed in most walks of life and certainly in all professions.  However, in few areas do the two come together more than in the role of engineer - and, in particular, the product design engineer.

"Product innovation remains the fundamental cornerstone of a survival strategy," said David Wright of the Manufacturing Advisory Service at this year's Manufacturing Excellence awards, talking about the need for British manufacturing and design to remain creative and vibrant, especially in an economic downturn.

There's a common consensus that with an increasingly fickle global market demanding a steady flow of fresh ideas and products, innovation is the new holy grail.  Yet, this creates a real challenge for educationalists; namely, can creativity and innovation actually be taught - and if so how?

This is a question I have been thinking about for many years now.  As a former engineering designer and educator at secondary school, technical college and university level and currently education programme manager for Autodesk, the design innovation technology developer and vendor, I have been talking to experts in the field of teaching creativity - such as University of Cambridge lecturer, Bill Nicholl.  I have also developed a Creative Curriculum and Creative Teaching strategy that offer students a framework to explore their creative potential.

Aside from the general need to draw more talent into design and engineering, one of the main drivers of this quest is the emergence of 3D design tools such as Autodesk Inventor Professional - now being used increasingly in both schools and universities.

Students of creativity navigate a path from ideas perceived in the 3D space of their imagination to expressing a concept through drawing and sculpting - yet traditional tools impose a barrier.  The latest 3D solutions, such as Inventor, enable student to develop 3D digital prototypes of their concepts with that same degree of creative freedom but with the amazing advantages of an intuitive and powerful CAD system.

Students can test, evaluate and simulate real world conditions and generate animations and visualisations that are of industry-leading quality.  This technological tool offers students creative freedom and is a unique link between creative expression and rigorous engineering functionality.

Much of the Creative Curriculum is designed to enable students to overcome fixed ideas.  According to Bill Nicholl: "These can be cultural; if left to their own devices, many will resort to stereotypes of clichéd images.  For example, heart shapes are very popular with teenage girls.  Or they may stem from a teacher who is too prescriptive, who insists on praising and showing the class past efforts or those they "made earlier" and so implanting ideas in students' heads.

"This approach brings a uniform response.  Students tell us they don't feel challenged or given the opportunity to be inventive or individual, they become demotivated.  Instead, they need to be offered choices in the classroom and be able to make their own decisions.  Tasks need to be ambiguous and there needs to be an element of risk."

This is where the software comes into its own as it ensures that taking risks with a design is easy and painless.  It enables them to be taken early on in the design process while it is relatively "safe" because the design is still on-screen.  Parametric technology ensures that every change is automatically updated throughout every model, drawing and document ensuring complete co-ordination.

It's an approach that I have been teaching in universities across the UK and Europe - from the University of Strathclyde to the Technische Universität at Munich.  For example, at the University of Bristol, the Department of Mechanical Engineering has been applying creative concepts to design in order to help transform its first year students' most extensive project.

Providing students with an understanding of how microcontrollers, sensors and actuators have become an integral part of product design, a Design and Make Project (DMP) is given to students at the end of the first year of the course. This offers them first-hand experience of microcontrollers, which they will use extensively during the second year of their course, and ultimately in their future careers. It also allows them to become familiar with vital aspects of the product development cycle.

Dr Booker has been teaching this course, with the DMP, for a number of years and decided that it could be improved by inspiring students to think differently.

"The DMP was more of a clunky mechanical design project before we were introduced to the Creative Curriculum," says Dr Booker. "It has led the students to think about the aesthetics of the project and has definitely motivated them to be more creative."

Students are guided through a schedule of work to complete the DMP, but ultimately manage the project themselves. The first three weeks are spent brainstorming, evaluating and selecting system solutions to satisfy the detailed product design specification. It was at this stage that the Creative Curriculum was the most effective. 

The students have to build a workable vending machine, so all the electrics and mechanical aspects need to be up-to-scratch in order for it to dispense the cups. In the past, they would concentrate solely on the electrics and mechanics and give very little thought to how the machine would look. In other words, the DMP as it stood was very constrained by the architecture of the vending machine.

"Since Stott's lecture, the designs students were coming up with were more creative - so they had to incorporate the mechanics within that architecture. This gave an added challenge to the project, which they really seemed to enjoy.  This inspiration meant that visually the projects were really different," says Dr Booker.

It seems that students have always enjoyed the DMP part of their course, saying they like the opportunity to apply the theory they have learnt during the year with a hands-on task. However, feedback was even more positive after the Creative Curriculum.

"They were very receptive to incorporating an element of creativity to the project and it led to some true innovative thinking. Students said they had never had this in any of their lectures before and they found it really rewarding," says Dr Booker.

The vending machine project continues to make a valuable contribution to the first year of the design and manufacture course, being both challenging and remaining within the constraints of an undergraduate degree. Dr Booker says that the Creative Curriculum has also increased the success rate of the students.

"There's no going back to the old way of presenting this project now because the creativity has inspired students to come up with some wonderful designs, a lot better than the designs of previous years. This is because they are not solely focused on the mechanical and electrical aspects of the vending machines.

"More students are passing the course by designing workable and elegant prototypes".

The project is intended to provide the students with a comparable experience to working to specification, deadline and cost target. The added-value of applying an element of creativity to the project gives students a complete view. The DMP allows students to develop personal and team skills, such as initiative, resourcefulness, communication, technical knowledge and decision- making - all of which will be useful in their future careers.

My experience here at Bristol - and indeed at every establishment where the curriculum is taught is that you can teach students to be creative.  Of course, not everyone can become another Brunel, Jonathan Ives or a Zaha Hadid. However, most people can have better ideas with the right teaching, encouragement and nurturing.

Teachers can download the Creative Curriculum from the Autodesk Student Engineering and Design Community.  This award-winning website offers free access to design software, innovative curriculum and a teacher-only discussion forum for the exchange of ideas and best practices.

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