Bamzooki
– Virtual Reality-Based Approach to Aid Complex
Engineering Design Planning Tasks
Dr Heather Rea, of the Edinburgh Beltane Beacon
for Public Engagement stated “By using
BAMZOOKi, as a tool for the research, the
project was able to simultaneously create
a useful engagement activity which inspired
a large audience of children at the Edinburgh
International Science Festival to make the
link between creativity and engineering and
involve them in a real research project". |
Customers' needs are changing - and organizations
across all sectors are increasingly being asked
not only to provide products in the first instance,
but also to support them throughout their service
life. It is important that structured engineering
information and knowledge are captured at all phases
of the product life cycle for future reference.
This is especially the case for long life cycle
projects which see a large number of engineering
decisions made at the early to mid-stages of a product's
life cycle that are needed to inform engineering
decisions later on in the process.
A robust solution is required to automatically
capture engineering processes/rationale that will
fit seamlessly with industry standard design tools.
Prof Jim Ritchie of the James Watt Institute
for High Value Manufacturing carried out research
to non-intrusively capture and formalise product
life cycle knowledge by demonstrating the automated
capture of engineering processes/rationale using
an immersive virtual reality system. The project
addresses the needs of the manufacturing industry
in providing product life cycle information to
support their products.
Due to the sensitive nature of industrial design
information, it was not possible to carry out
research on specific company data. A solution
was to use a software tool called Bamzooki, which
is designed to enable children to build virtual
creatures. This software had all of the design
characteristics of Engineering CAD data and was
a perfect tool to demonstrate the capture of real-world
engineering design and planning tasks
The impact of this study has been the demonstration
to industrial partners of the ability to automate
knowledge capture within the design process. These
principles are now being developed with industrial
partners to investigate real-world engineering
design and planning tasks. The work has also significantly
increased public awareness of the computer aided
design process with over 400 children having used
the system at science fairs. This early engagement
will hopefully inspire the next generation of
engineers.
For more information contact:
Jim Ritchie
j.m.ritchie@hw.ac.uk
0131 451 4364
www.mec.hw.ac.uk/research/robotics.htm |
