How to inject ancient know-how for future design: using advanced industrial archaeology during pedagogical projects

Contemporary engineering processes require numerous competences and knowledge using different semantics. Our research consists to design virtually ancient technical objects. The approach we have developed is a new kind of design process: it is a heritage reverse-engineering methodology. It requires a project team with many jobs which, until then, have never collaborate together or not yet: it is an inter-disciplinary team. An example will demonstrate our proposal for making old technical objects alive again and how human sciences and technical sciences can merge together. The case study is a steam boat designed in 1861 by the enterprise DCNS Propulsion.