This position paper is part of a long-term research project on human-machine co-creativity with older adults. The goal is to investigate how robots and AI-generated content can contribute to older adults’ creative experiences, with a focus on collaborative drawing and painting. The research has recently started, and current activities are centred around literature studies, interviews with seniors and artists, and developing initial prototypes. In addition, a course “Drawing with Robots”, is being developed to establish collaboration between human and machine learners: older adults, artists, students, researchers, and artificial agents. We present this courseas a learning community and as an opportunity for studying how explainable AI and creative dialogues can be intertwined in human-machine co-creativity with older adults.
This study investigates what pupils aged 10-12 can learn from working with robots, assuming that understanding robotics is a sign of technological literacy. We conducted cognitive and conceptual analysis to develop a frame of reference for determining pupils' understanding of robotics. Four perspectives were distinguished with increasing sophistication; psychological, technological, function, and controlled system. Using Lego Mindstorms NXT robots, as an example of a Direct Manipulation Environment, we developed and conducted a lesson plan to investigate pupils' reasoning patterns. There is ample evidence that pupils have little difficulty in understanding that robots are man-made technological and functional artifacts. Pupils' understanding of the controlled system concept, more specifically the complex sense-reason-act loop that is characteristic of robotics, can be fostered by means of problem solving tasks. The results are discussed with respect to pupils' developing technological literacy and the possibilities for teaching and learning in primary education.
Nowadays companies need higher educated engineers to develop their competences to enable them to innovate. This innovation competence is seen as a remedy for the minor profitable business they do during the financial crises. Innovation is an element to be developed on the one hand for big companies as well as for small-and-medium sized companies through Europe to overcome this crisis. The higher education can be seen as an institution where youngsters, coming from secondary schools, who choose to learn at higher education to realize their dream, what they like to become in the professional world. The tasks of the Universities of applied Sciences are to prepare these youngsters to become starting engineers doing their job well in the companies. Companies work for a market, trying to manufacture products which customers are willing to pay for. They ask competent employees helping achieving this goal. It is important these companies inform the Universities of applied Sciences in order to modify their educational program in such a way that the graduated engineers are learning the latest knowledge and techniques, which they need to know doing their job well. The Universities of applied Sciences of Oulu (Finland) and Fontys Eindhoven (The Netherlands) are working together to experience possibilities to qualify their students on innovation development in an international setting. In the so-called: ‘Invention Project’, students are motivated to find their own invention, to design it, to prepare this idea for prototyping and to really manufacture it. Organizing the project, special attention is given to communication protocol between students and also between teachers. Students have meetings on Thursday every week through Internet connection with the communication program OPTIMA, which is provided by the Oulu University. Not only the time difference between Finland and the Netherlands is an issue to be organized also effective protocols how to provide each other relevant information and also how to make in an effective way decisions are issues. In the paper the writers will present opinions of students, teachers and also companies in both regions of Oulu and Eindhoven on the effectiveness of this project reaching the goal students get more experienced to set up innovative projects in an international setting. The writers think this is an important and needed competence for nowadays young engineers to be able to create lucrative inventions for companies where they are going to work for. In the paper the writers also present the experiences of the supervising conditions during the project. The information found will lead to success-factors and do’s and don’ts for future projects with international collaboration.
Circular Economy is a novel disruptive paradigm redefining sustainability in the hospitality industry and addressing the environmental challenges set by this fast-growing impactful industry. To address these challenges, the creation of further knowledge on circular economy and its applications in the hospitality sector is fundamental, together with providing hoteliers and restaurateurs with proper skills and knowhow to tackle such challenges. Drawing on a on going pilot project on Circular Economy in Hotels in Amsterdam, the Friesland hospitality sector and the Professorship of Sustainability in Hospitality and Tourism at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences have set out to develop an innovative learning experimental environment in which Friesland hoteliers and restaurateurs can develop further knowledge and identify - together with students, researchers, and experts – possible key actions and strategies to implement regenerative circular processes of material up-cycling. To which extent this learning community of the Northern Netherlands contributes to develop wider knowledge on circular economy in hospitality and to identify, implement, and test innovative regenerative circular actions will be evaluated.
This project assists architects and engineers to validate their strategies and methods, respectively, toward a sustainable design practice. The aim is to develop prototype intelligent tools to forecast the carbon footprint of a building in the initial design process given the visual representations of space layout. The prediction of carbon emission (both embodied and operational) in the primary stages of architectural design, can have a long-lasting impact on the carbon footprint of a building. In the current design strategy, emission measures are considered only at the final phase of the design process once major parameters of space configuration such as volume, compactness, envelope, and materials are fixed. The emission assessment only at the final phase of the building design is due to the costly and inefficient interaction between the architect and the consultant. This proposal offers a method to automate the exchange between the designer and the engineer using a computer vision tool that reads the architectural drawings and estimates the carbon emission at each design iteration. The tool is directly used by the designer to track the effectiveness of every design choice on emission score. In turn, the engineering firm adapts the tool to calculate the emission for a future building directly from visual models such as shared Revit documents. The building realization is predominantly visual at the early design stages. Thus, computer vision is a promising technology to infer visual attributes, from architectural drawings, to calculate the carbon footprint of the building. The data collection for training and evaluation of the computer vision model and machine learning framework is the main challenge of the project. Our consortium provides the required resources and expertise to develop trustworthy data for predicting emission scores directly from architectural drawings.
De fotonica industrie groeit snel in de Brainport regio. Multinationals zoals ASML maar ook talrijke MKB bedrijven werken aan complexe optische systemen. Zij concurreren op wereldschaal met high tech Amerikaanse en Aziatische spelers. Innovatie is daarvoor van levensbelang. R&D in de sleuteltechnologieën fotonica en geavanceerde fabricagesystemen levert hiervoor de hoognodige brandstof. Zo ook in dit project, waarbij twee high tech MKB bedrijven met Fontys 3D-metaalprinten op een nieuwe en slimme manier gaan inzetten voor fotonica. Complexe optische systemen bevatten meestal meerdere optische elementen (o.a. lenzen, spiegels, diafragma’s, lichtbronnen, sensoren) die onderling in een lichtweg gerangschikt en onderling afgesteld moeten worden. Hierbij worden z.g. optische mounts gebruikt om de positie van de individuele optische elementen vast te leggen en na afstelling te fixeren. Een dergelijke afstelmethode is vaak lastig (divergerend), tijdrovend en niet stabiel over de tijd (want gebaseerd op wrijvingsfixatie). Dit project onderzoekt als oplossing een geïntegreerd monolithisch 3D geprint montagesysteem voor optische elementen, waarbij gebruik gemaakt wordt van ruimtelijk georiënteerde 3D geprinte monolithische elementen (spelings- en hysteresevrij). Hiermee wordt de insteltijd aanzienlijk gereduceerd (doelstelling: 100% --> 30%). Tevens zal de positioneernauwkeurigheid van de hierin opgenomen optische elementen gegarandeerd zijn. Tenslotte zullen er aanzienlijk minder onderdelen in het ontwerp aanwezig zijn. Als concrete en haalbare demonstrator wordt een 3D geprinte monolithische optical mount voor de lichtweg van de “Arinna” laserinterferometer van IBSPE uit Eindhoven ontwikkeld en getest. 3D geprinte optical mounts zijn nieuw voor dit netwerk, maar Fontys en aangesloten ondernemers hebben de relevante ervaring in 3D metaalprinten en fotonica. Met de aangesloten fotonica netwerken Photon Delta, DSPE en PhotonicsNL kan de opgedane kennis snel opgeschaald worden en kunnen ook andere MKB bedrijven deze innovatieve mounts voor hun supply chains gaan onderzoeken.
