NEW METHODS FOR THE DESIGN OF SMART PRODUCTS: PROJECT BASED LEARNING WITH INDUSTRY

In the last few years, IoT (Internet of Things) technology has been in full development. However, the market has not yet given rise to many concrete applications with high adoption since classic product oriented SMEs (Small to Medium-sized Enterprises) have difficulties with the integration of these IoT technologies in existing products. Simultaneously, our design education is shifting from knowledge based learning towards project based learning. Students need to be trained in the process of finding and applying new technologies rather than acquiring existing knowledge.Both technological and educational shifts present opportunities for educators to expose design and engineering students to new design paradigms, while also involving local industry. Companies are also increasingly relying on external Research and Development (R&D) organizations, such as Universities, to support innovation [1]. Additionally, as stressed by Chen & Hsu [2], fostering creativity among students is viewed as an important skill for engineering students. In order to achieve this, a new integrated design course has been presented to interdisciplinary teams of students with a background in industrial product design, electronics, and multimedia and information technology. In this course, we challenge them to come up with an idea and working prototype for a smart product. In this paper we give an overview of the course and present its strengths and pitfalls. We found our approach to be successful, with design cases that lead to novel research, technologies and commercial products. We discuss the impact of our results for design education and suggest areas for further research.