Theme 5: Reflection

In this weeks first lecture given by Ylva Fernaeus she began by adding some complimentary information that were not mentioned in her paper that we read. Ylva and her co-author wanted to design a new physical "programming language" called actDresses, and she mentioned that they were inspired by, for example, Curlybot which is a small robot that can repeat different movements after they are performed physically. The aim was to provide meaningful physical interaction with the robots, where signifiers that are code-based (commands) would be replaced by movements or other physical interactions. However some of us in the audience, including myself, did not agree on the meaningfulness of actDresses completely. 

One question that was asked by the audience that I found particularly interesting was what Ylva thought of the future of this concept. This question was very similar to the one I meant to ask but did not have to. I myself had difficulties imagining a bigger, commercially viable area where actDresses could be applied. However Ylva told us that ABB had been interested in the concept and how they could use it on their robots to see which "state" it was in. Unfortunately this did not result in anything concrete in the end, and I believe that the reason for this is that physical interaction is somewhat clumsier than for example interacting with a robot using your smartphone (via an app). 

Moving on, Ylva brought up some of her own questions that were quite interesting. For example, if the study were to be done today you could involve 3D printing for making your own comic signs and tags etcetera. Also, the qualitative aspects of this paper were that they observed the robots behaviour and made an analysis of it. It was kind of an eye opener to realize that a qualitative method does not have to be limited to focus groups or interviewing people but can be simply to observe a concept or design like actDresses that you base on prior research and expert knowledge. The fact that actDresses present something new and something that combine different areas and something that is analyzable makes it research. However this is a matter of definition in my opinion and if you are not careful you could end up with for example a design that is not motivated/analyzed/based on prior research enough to actually be called research.

The main points that I take with me from Haibo Li's lecture about the process from idea to prototype from an engineering perspective is that you have to define a problem that should be solved to become "the great". "The famous" researchers/doctors/professors spend 90% of their time on solving an existing problem. It is important that we go back to the origin of the problem and ask ourself whether the problem is defined correctly or if we can define it differently and do something great while at the same time contributing to our respective field of science. However to become "the great" we should not fool ourselves. We should constantly ask ourselves whether we are able to judge if the problem we are defining/solving is using breakthrough technology. To summarize, the art of engineering is to do the right things and to do them right. This lecture inspired me to really think about what kind of master thesis I want to do, and how I can get there.