Smart Wearables courses teach students both design and engineering skills
Professor Yu Xiao, from the Department of Information and Communications Engineering, and her research group have developed two new courses on smart wearables in collaboration with the Department of Design. These multidisciplinary courses emphasise both design and engineering skills: students learn about smart textiles and produce a related project in a small group.
In the Smart Wearables basic course, Wang Zhicheng, a student of Human-Computer Interaction, and Sara Kutkova, a student of Computer Science, designed a pair of smart gloves for gesture recognition. Their design won the best design award in the class. Their work involved developing textile-based sensors to detect finger movements and designing circuits to integrate these sensors with a microcontroller. They then collected data and used it to train a machine learning algorithm for gesture recognition.
'The experience was really enriching. With the help of the teaching assistants, we were able to overcome most of the challenges we encountered along the way, resulting in a fully functional final product. I'm particularly proud that our design was recognised and awarded the best design prize,' says Wang Zhicheng. Read more about their project here: Smart wearables.
Multidisciplinary courses encourage creative collaboration
The Smart Wearables courses combine engineering and design in an interesting way, which is something the students really like about the courses. In addition to the multidisciplinary nature of the courses, the engineering and design students also learned a lot from each other.
'The course was truly a one-of-a-kind experience, bringing together students from both technical and artistic backgrounds, fostering creative collaboration. The outcome of the course really exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this field or looking to immerse themselves in a multidisciplinary environment,' Wang Zhicheng says.
Design student Pia Johansson feels that the multidisciplinary group work was one of the most important aspects of the course. In the Smart Wearables II course, she worked in a group of three people, all from different disciplines. The group created a prototype for a smart hiking and outdoor garment that could detect sweat and help regulate body temperature. She thinks that the project was a great combination of design and engineering, which provided many different aspects and problems to solve for the project.
She feels that the course has given her a better understanding of the different specialisms that designers can bring to such projects.
'I found it very useful to observe and learn from the problem-solving approaches of people from other disciplines, such as computer science or physics. For example, I realised that I was more focused on usability than on the sensitivity of the sensor, which was a more important aspect for my team-mate to solve. In a way, our different approaches to the problem were complementary,' Pia Johansson says.
In the second course, Sara Kutkova worked in the same team as Pia Johansson. As a computer science student, she didn't have much knowledge about different materials or design, for example.
'A good smart wearable has to be comfortable and sustainable, which is one of the big challenges in the wearable industry today. During this course, and especially thanks to my teammates, I learned more about this issue,' says Sara Kutkova.
Smart wearables take off in Chile
The courses have been developed as part of the Finland-Chile Joint Training Programme in Smart Wearables, funded by the Team Finland Knowledge Programme. As part of the project, Professor Xiao and others will run an intensive course on smart wearables at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC) in October 2024, using the materials developed and tested at Aalto. As part of this project, Sara Kutkova will visit PUC for three months this autumn.
Professor Yu Xiao is pleased with how the courses have developed in collaboration with the Department of Design.
'Teamwork has played an essential role in the development of these new courses. In the future, we would like to collaborate more with Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in multidisciplinary teaching in the field of smart wearables,' she says.
Aalto student! Would you be interested in taking the courses? The next Smart Wearables (ELEC-E7840, 3-6 ECTS) is held in Period III-IV, from spring 2025 and the Smart Wearables II D course (ELEC-E7822, 6 ECTS) in Period I-II, from autumn 2025.
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