MOD: Design Tools to Cognitive Processes to Innovation

美国在科学和技术领域面临着严峻的挑战，我们未来的工程师必须利用创新来生产新产品，创造就业机会，并加强国民经济。此外，认知科学和工程学之间的现有联系在全国范围内相当小。这项研究提供了一个非常需要的多样化的调查人员，以跨越这些领域的知识桥梁。工程设计是体力和脑力的丰富相互作用。成功的设计工程师使用工件和工具将想法转化为完成的设计。在过去的几十年里，工程师可以使用的工具和工件的数量几乎是无限的。这些工具包括绘图程序、定量建模软件、速写纸、计算机辅助设计程序和原型设备。尽管它们在支持创造力和创新思想方面很重要，但目前人们对工具如何以不同的方式支持创新设计知之甚少。缺乏对这些工具如何影响创新设计的了解限制了对工具的改进以及如何以及何时在设计中使用这些工具的实用知识。当前研究的目标是通过结合匹兹堡大学认知科学研究和创新设计教育（斯旺森产品创新中心）的优势，开始建立对创新设计过程中工具和人工制品作用的认知过程的基本理解。一个大规模的实验，检查在哪些人工制品和工具有助于创新设计的方式进行。该实验用于收集设计活动的庞大数据库，其中包括来自大约60个本科和研究生水平的工程设计团队的约3,000小时的视频，这些视频使用网络基础设施进行视频收集。然后策略性地对视频进行采样，以解开从环境中的设计/工具工件到设计基础的核心认知过程，再到设计创造力的维度，再到设计对象的最终成功的因果路径。此外，新的工程设计创新指标被开发、验证和改进。这项研究的优点在于这样一个事实，即对设计工具和工件学习的全面研究将极大地扩展对这个重要但经常被忽视的领域所涉及的基本过程的理解。在这项研究完成后，预计所获得的知识将使研究人员能够领导开发一套新的设计工具和策略，以支持实践工程师和教育工程学生。这些工具和策略可以产生深远的影响，因为它们可以在设计实践和工程设计教育中引发实质性的变化。这项研究还涉及大量的数据收集工作。由此产生的录象数据库将提供关于工具和人工制品在创新设计中的作用的大量数据，其中只有一小部分将在赠款期间进行分析。这个视频数据库将在今后几年促进大量后续分析。由此产生的录像数据库将在整个学术界传播。

The U.S. is facing serious challenges in the fields of science and technology and our future engineers must use innovation to generate new products, create employment opportunities, and strengthen the national economy. Furthermore, the existing connections between cognitive science and engineering are nationally quite small. This study provides a much needed diverse set of investigators to bridge knowledge across these areas. Engineering design is a rich interplay of physical and mental. Successful design engineers move from ideas to completed designs using artifacts and tools. Over the past several decades, the number of tools and artifacts available to engineers has become nearly limitless. These tools include drawing programs, quantitative modeling software, sketch paper, computer aided design programs, and prototyping facilities. Despite their importance for supporting creativity and innovative ideas, little is presently known about how tools differentially support innovative design. A lack of knowledge how these tools impact innovative design limits improvements to tools and practical knowledge of how and when to use those tools in design.The goal of the current study is to begin to build a fundamental understanding of the cognitive processes underlying the role of tools and artifacts in the innovative design process, by combining strengths in cognitive science research and innovative design education (Swanson Center for Product Innovation) at the University of Pittsburgh. A large-scale experiment that examines the ways in which artifacts and tools contribute to innovative design is conducted. This experiment is used to collect a massive database of design activities, consisting of approximately 3,000 hours of video from approximately 60 undergraduate and graduate-level engineering design teams using cyber-infrastructure for video collection leveraged through this grant. The video is then strategically sampled to unpack the causal path from design/tools artifacts in the environment, to core cognitive processes underlying design, to dimensions of design creativity, to the ultimate success of the designed object. In addition, new engineering design innovativeness metrics are developed, validated, and refined. The merit of this study lies within the fact that such a comprehensive study on the learning of design tools and artifacts will substantially expand the understanding of the fundamental processes involved in this important, but often overlooked field.At the completion of this study, it is expected that the knowledge gained will allow the investigators to lead the development of a new suite of design tools and strategies for supporting practicing engineers and educating engineering students. These tools and strategies could have far reaching implications as they could initiate substantial changes in design practice and engineering design education. This study also involves an enormous data collection effort. The resulting video database will provide volumes of data on the role of tools and artifacts in innovative design, only a small portion of which is to be analyzed during the grant period. This video database will foster considerable follow-up analyses for years to come. The resulting video database will be disseminated throughout the academic community.