Conference Agenda

Design thinking is a well-established framework for structured innovation in various business sectors, particularly in the field of engineering design. The need to comprehensively teach this methodology to students requires innovative pedagogical strategies. The use of industry-relevant simulations with authentic interdisciplinary and international teamwork offers a compelling approach. This paper examines the "Collaborative Product Development in Automotive Engineering" course, known as CoPro, a cooperation between the University of Wuppertal, RWTH Aachen University in Germany, and Hongik University in Seoul, Korea which has been established in 2007. This unique course provides the mentioned preconditions to develop students' skills in design thinking methodologies and has been further developed over the past 15+ years to integrate new methods and tools, addressing the need for new skillsets, changing trends and societal evolution.

CoPro consists of five multidisciplinary teams, each consisting of six students from German and Korean universities in the majors of mechanical engineering and product design. The yearly changing topic is given by automotive OEM to support a realistic use-case scenario. The course's distinctive cross-cultural dynamics and the application of design thinking principles to authentic challenges together form a robust course setting.

Gamification, a contemporary methodology in motivational and interaction design, has received considerable attention in the past years. Gamification's core strength lies in its ability to analyze user behavior and product usage motivation and thus, gives a potential improvement to existing methods in engineering design.

This paper explores the benefits of incorporating gamification principles into the product development process as part of the 2022 CoPro course. Specifically, one team was given the opportunity to use gamification methods to introduce novel product features into their concept. The usage of the new methods created a transformative shift in the students' product development process. Gamification acted as a catalyst, facilitating the team's ability to conceive of novel product features that not only addressed the challenges posed by the OEM, but also embodied a pioneering approach to real-world problem solving. The results of this experiment showed that the team made significant progress in conceptualizing innovative product features and optimizing the performance in comparison to the other teams.

This research highlights the transformative impact of integrating gamification elements into traditional design thinking processes and underscores the potential for future applications in educational and industrial contexts. It emphasizes the growing importance of interdisciplinary and pioneering approaches, reinforcing a holistic understanding of design thinking, while highlighting the value of international collaboration in addressing complex challenges in the field of automotive engineering. The CoPro course 2022 serves as a compelling example to the synergy between design thinking and gamification, offering valuable insights to educators, students, and industry practitioners alike.

There is a wide agreement that Sustainability has failed. Planetary resource exploitation and the capitalist call for short-term planning and quick profit (often at all costs) have, arguably, been undermining efforts for a sustainable economy. The most prominent trend insofar as the latter is concerned, is on how to constrain immediate needs (or desires) to serve future ones, rather than seeking regenerative long-lasting strategies. Furthermore, the bridge between the theory and practice of Sustainability has contributed to the acceptance that human beings have decisively altered the atmosphere and have set in motion inevitable drastic changes to the Earth system over geological time.

Fortunately, Sustainability has been undergoing serious changes helping not only to deconstruct the human-nature divide, but also to create bridges between the theory and the practice of the so-called sustainable practices. In this paper we discuss how the notion of ‘Aesthetics of Care’ (AoC) aids raise awareness on the development of a Regenerative Sustainability (RS) as well as on its implementation in various contexts. Following work carried out, we understand AoC as a process aiming ethically responsible action, informed/activated by sensory experience, and shaped by knowledge and aesthetic consciousness; this entails caring for ourselves, others and the planet.

We propose AoC as an appropriate approach to rethink the role of technology(ies) in human development. This idea was firstly addressed by a feminist Ethics of Care, where care is treated as a central value in the society, becoming ‘everything we do to maintain, contain, and repair our “world” so that we can live in it as well as possible’. To Sustainability, AoC is thought of as a matter of relationality’ where the ‘care’ element also comprises ‘generalised relational and affective elements’ that go beyond caring about or for specific objects or beings. Hence, a concern with the environment places the AoC definition in close proximity to the recently proposed concept of Regenerative Sustainability (RS) and its three meta-principles of working towards “Wholeness”, “Change” and “Relationships”.

Teaching AoC in the frame of RS, offers a valuable opportunity to rethink the way we produce, and consume, not just the objects we interact with but also our perception of reality in such a moment of ecological and social crisis. We propose a game-based Teaching Training Programme (TTP) for technological higher-education to assess work, behaviour and choices of the participants. We tested three games that could be used to introduce participants from different backgrounds to mobilise the ideas of AoC and RS within their practices, by encouraging teamwork, critical thinking and self-evaluation. These games are: ‘Atlas of Weak Signals’, ‘In The Loop’, and ‘Revolt’. They serve as educational tools that prompt questioning of decisions, actions, and attitudes concerning ecology, AoC and RS.

The rules of the games are set in a particular way encouraging the development of RS using a multi-disciplinary framework. Results from a qualitative self-evaluation are presented and, eventually, it is shown that such a game-based methodology has the potential to promote and teach AoC and RS in technological higher-education milieux.

Serious games are not only designed for entertainment but also to convey an educational message. From childhood to the professional world, this new form of educational gaming is popular but insufficiently developed for children. Previous research indicates a particular gap in innovation within this landscape of educational games. In response to this issue, the game "Lino as an Idea" was created and experimented within several classrooms, in both physical and digital forms. However, this game exists in only one copy and needs to be disseminated. The objective of this article is to highlight a deployment method for a serious game in the educational world by understanding the various stages that compose it. Once established, it aims to apply this method to the case of the serious game "Lino as an idea" in France. The focus of this article is centered on the dissemination of a serious game.

This paper presents an investigation into the utilisation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) by product design students in the concept generation, ideation, and design methodology of their final year major project. With AI's growing presence in the design field, its impact on the education of future designers requires investigation. This research aims to highlight the advantages and disadvantages associated with incorporating generative AI tools into the curricula of product design students. The study involves an in-depth analysis of how generative AI could be integrated into the design education process. It explores the extent to which AI-driven tools are employed by students to generate, refine, and iterate design concepts, and how it impacts their design methodology processes. By appraising and analysing the outcomes from AI creative design workshops and conducting surveys with final year product design students, this research sets out to determine the practical applications of generative AI in our future designers. By investigating the advantages and disadvantages, it equips educators and students with valuable knowledge to harness the full potential of AI in their design journeys. This paper contributes to the ongoing conversation on AI's role in design education, paving the way for informed pedagogical decisions and the education of future designers who can leverage AI as a powerful creative tool.