The TU Delft Science Centre is currently renewing its programming, including the development of new workshops for children aged 8 to 12 years, named Techniek Studio. The Science Centre’s main goal is to create fun experiences that spark a lasting interest in technology and innovation. However, how to achieve such meaningful engagement remains unclear. This design research project responded with the following design challenge: “Discover how to develop a STEAM-based workshop that provides children 8 - 12 years old with a meaningful experience at the TU Delft Science Centre”

Using a Research Through Design approach, the project combined literature review, expert interviews, and observations to formulate 14 initial design guidelines. These guidelines were organised across the three experiential phases: before, during, and after the workshop. They included initial actionable points and instructional support. It also incorporates the on literature- based designed ‘experience layers model’, which guides goal setting and evaluation.

A case study was performed, which included the development and testing of the ‘Experiementing with Art’ workshop. Through this case study, the guidelines and supportive elements were refined. This process led to the design of ‘The STEAMingful Design Tool’, a detailed, practical booklet for workshop design. Evaluation of the test workshop with the ‘experience layers model’ indicated that participants gained meaningful insights on both the topic and the use of the materials of the workshop. However, the longer-term impact on sustained interest remains uncertain.

Expert reviews on the tool suggest that the tool effectively supports novice designers but recommend adapting the tool for more experienced users.

Ultimately, this project delivers both a tested STEAM- based workshop and a research-informed design tool that holds promise for fostering meaningful STEAM-based out-of-school learning experiences. Future research by independent workshop developers is recommended to examine the long-term effects of using the tool on children’s level of experience. This will also further validate the applicability of the tool outside the Science Centre. ... Read more

The market of quantum computing is growing rapidly due to the rising demand of high-performance computing. By combining quantum theory and computer science, quantum computing shows great promise for future application in fields like algorithms, cryptography, machine learning and quantum simulation. Current breakthroughs in quantum technology and rising investments in the quantum computing market indicate a high demand of quantum physicists over the coming decade.

Looking at projected future investments in the quantum computing market, the current state of the quantum technology education infrastructure and it’s foreseeable shortcoming in providing a sufficiently strong workforce to answer the industry’s expansion, it can be expected that quantum education will be pressurized to conform to big change to keep up with the industry.

The project aims to provide a solution that will help open ways to achieve maintaining the balance of education and industry that is needed within the quantum technology sector if the industry keeps expanding as it is currently. It hopes to deliver where currently is missing: an engaging way to interest our current youth in quantum technology before they reach university, in a way that motivates them to become one of the future quantum physicists that the industry will drastically need.

Currently basic aspects of quantum physics are difficult to convey to a younger generation in a compelling and engaging manner. This project aimed to introduce basic aspects of quantum physics through a science museum exhibit using cymatics, the study of visual wave phenomena. The wave-like characteristic found in both quantum physics and cymatics was the primary factor to investigate how cymatics could be used to introduce basic aspects of quantum physics to young future scientists through a science museum exhibit design. The modes of vibration in cymatics are called eigenmodes.

The final design is an exhibit design that uses these eigenmodes to simulate how quantum physicists work with their delicate and sensitive quantum systems. In the design the eigenmodes resemble the sensitivity of the qubits that these physicists work with.
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Collective behaviour can be seen everywhere. It is the phenomenon where many individuals form a group together and act as a whole. These groups are mesmerising to watch, but we can also learn from them. The way these groups behave depend on how the individuals react to their local surroundings. Obtaining knowledge about this concept brings knowledge in different areas like animal groups, human behaviour and complex design systems.
The goal of the project was to make a wide audience aware of collective behaviour, by teaching them in a playful interactive way, through a museum installation. The target group are museum visitors of age 8 and older. The question was what the user experience would look like and how the design would take shape.

The project started with understanding what collective behaviour is, to find out which elements are most important to convey in the design. Designing for a museum context and different technologies that can be used in the installation are explored. This phase concluded with requirements to implement in the museum installation.
In the following phase, the user interaction and the way visitors will manipulate the installation are ideated, and the goal for the user is determined. This phase included brainstorming, ideation by sketching and eventually lead to the design of the installation embodiment.
In the last phase of the project, the final design was determined and detailed: Control the Collective. By interacting with the designed installation, users can manipulate the size of three zones, in which the agents behave in a certain way. These are the zone of repulsion, the zone of orientation and the zone of attraction. Museum visitors can change the size of these zones by sliding disks along a line on the floor and with the use of corresponding buttons. These disks and buttons are placed on top of a circular platform, which users can stand on top of. The size of these zones and the influence on the composition of an individual within the group are visualised on this platform. Simultaneously, on a wall curved around the platform, the accompanying visualisation of the moving group is displayed.
The museum installation was evaluated and validated in Naturalis on user experience and the level of understanding of users. Lastly, recommendations are provided for future research and implementation of the design.
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E-quarium is a rich visualization which enables an intuitive representation of the entire home energy flow and affords both an ambient and data-centric approach to data visualisation. The goal of the E-quarium is to optimize energy efficiency within the household in a fun and engaging way to benefit both the user, as well as the environment. To provide all household members with rich insight into energy consumption practices, the challenge was to decrease the cognitive load and required background knowledge associated with the interpretation of typical data-centric solutions, while still being able to provide multiple energy consumption parameters in a single display window. In this thesis the E-quarium concept, which was designed in 2013, was revisited to find if it still is relevant in today's (2021) context. The structure of the research was based on the idea that a truly successful HEMS interface needs to be able to inform the user, be able to hold the attention of the user and engage him to act on the information and feedback which he receives, as well as offer the user control over energy management. It was found that commercially available HEMS might have greatly improved in terms of UX when they are compared to older devices such as programmable thermostats, they fail to address the context of the user in important ways. The issues that E-quarium addresses namely, helping the user gain a better understand of his energy context and engaging him to increase his energy efficiency, remain relevant to this day. With that said the trend in the industry is much more towards automation, than it is towards motivation and helping the user gain a better understanding of energy management. ... Read more

Everybody has a personal space. A zone that you naturally preserve free around you, so you feel at your most comfortable. That personal space varies quite a lot from person to person. It is also a fluid zone because it is very much dependent on the type of interaction you are having at that moment. 
This thesis was the development of a design tool for the exploration of proxemic zones. It focussed on using modern sensors and technology to be able to measure exact distances towards people. By user testing the different iterations in the development, it became more apparent how people set distances. 
The final design is called the Proximity vest. The tool is a vest that is easily deployable and can be used all day without interrupting the user or the people around them. It uses a stereoscopic camera in the front that has the same field of view as a person. It accurately detects people and measures the distance they are apart from you. The video is locally processed to distance data-points and sent to the cloud for easy data analysis. ... Read more

Past and current product design practices have not been and are not skin tone inclusive. People with darker skin tones are regularly excluded from the design process and the final product. Examples of this are the simple adhesive bandage and the more advanced facial recognition software. This project aimed to change this through an exploration of this type of exclusion, generally caused by designer bias. 
Products that are not skin tone inclusive can be clustered into four different categories; Inadequate Color Selection, Failing Technology & Software, Undereducated Service Providers, and Unequal Communication & Representation. The products in these four categories have recurring issues, i.e., things that are consistently faulty. These issues led to thirteen Skin Tone Inclusive Design Guidelines to aid the designer in the design process. 
The current Industrial Design Engineering curriculum does not pay any attention to the issue of skin tone inclusivity. The first-year bachelor course Understanding Humans is the ideal place to introduce this topic with the Skin Tone Inclusivity Lesson Plan, to be used during the Wonder Assignment. With four sub-goals; Raise Awareness, Trigger Self-Reflection, Trigger Self-Awareness, and finally, Trigger Inclusive Design Behavior, the students are led through a session that leads to an understanding of the skin tone inclusive design guidelines. This is done incrementally, with the guidelines being introduced during the last activity of the Assignment. Using the three designed components, the Beige by Default website, the Card Set, and the Skin Tone Inclusive Design Guidelines, the students complete different activities to ultimately reach a more inclusive design behavior. ... Read more

This project aims to improve employees’ social well-being in offices through informal interactions. It consists of 3 phases in total, context research, idea generation and concept development. Experiencing prototyping was mainly used in the design process.

In the first phase, observation and interviews were conducted in 2 offices in Beijing to know about the context and discover problems and design opportunities. Another round of research was carried out in StudioLab for verification of the insights from Beijing offices. The results, combining with the results of the literature review, led to the design goal defined.

Then the project started to focus on stimulating meaningful chats among employees to increase their sense of belonging. Ideas were brainstormed and selected, prototypes and storyboards were made to let participants evaluate the concepts through interviews. After 3 cycles of idea generation, the final concept direction was defined.

After that, 2 cycles of concept development were conducted to iterate the concept. Again, prototypes were made and interviews were done to evaluate the concept and get feedback from participants. In the end, the final design was defined, final prototypes were made and final evaluation was conducted.

Overall, it is a design project exploring solutions for solving one of employees’ social problems in offices, lacking the sense of belonging. ... Read more

The Netherlands is one of the forerunners in the fields of international scientific research, education and innovation. Currently ,the country faces a dire problem - insufficient technologically skilled people to meet the demands of the fast growing technological development.
To address this problem, the government mandated to actively encourage science among young children.
Science museums play a crucial role in delivering lessons to schools, they are ideal spaces to make the maximum impact on a young mind. Thus, the idea for the Robotic and Programming lab at Museon was born. The lab is established to be at the forefront of this change and to actively introduce programming to primary school children.

This project conceptualises the interactive experience of the robotic programming lab. It also formulates a framework for the experience which aids in the conceptualisation of interactive activities within the lab. These interactions are designed with an aim to encourage programming while closely considering the learning outcomes and the science concepts that children are already familiar with. ... Read more

This project report describes the process of the development of an evaluation process for family exhibitions in the Maritime Museum Rotterdam. It is focusing on collecting qualitative feedback from families, consisting out of children between 8 and 12 years old and their parent or grandparents. The Maritime Museum Rotterdam has various interactive exhibitions which learn their visitors about the maritime world. The museum was looking for a way to get qualitative feedback from their visitors about these exhibitions. The museum wants to learn what contributes to or deducts a positive experience of their exhibitions, so they can create even more inspiring exhibitions in the future. The assignment for this project is to design a tool-box, containing all elements needed to conduct a successful qualitative evaluation of a family exhibition. The Sea monster exhibition in the Maritime Museum was chosen to be a test-case for this project. During the project, several methods for gaining feedback were explored. It was decided to build an evaluation process around the concept of a heat-map which shows what areas visitors do or don’t like. The method that was chosen to collect the data to create the heat-map is experience sampling. During the exhibition visit, visitors are asked to give a small sample of feedback. They can do this by pressing a smiley that indicates how much they like what they are doing or seeing at that moment on a special developed tracking device. This device also keeps track of the location of the visitors. A line, showing the route of the visitors and the given feedback samples will be created from this information. For this concept, a framework of the evaluation process was created. In this framework, two tracks were distinguished. One track, called version 1 in this project, collects the route and feedback samples of over a hundred visitors. An interactive stand will ask automated questions based on this data. The other track, called version 2 in this project, only involves five families. A heat-map is created for each family member and based on the heat-map an interview is held. A process poster was developed which shows all steps of both tracks. However, the focus during the project was on this last track, version 2. The tracking device (the tool), the interview, and the analysis and communication of version 2 were developed further. Several tests were done to find the characteristic the portable tracking device should meet to collect the right data to create a heat-map that can be used to structure the interview. In the final design, a working prototype of the tracking device was created. Besides that, an interview guide was developed containing all information needed to conduct an interview, based on the heat-map. Lastly, all steps of the analysis and communication were distinguished and finding-cards were designed To validate the concept, various tests were done to evaluate the evaluation process. ... Read more

In this report, I have explained my iterative design process using research through design approach. This project focuses on the context of Artificial intelligence and design collaboration. It also represents a design method of integrating human and non – human biases while designing intelligent products.

Abilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are expanding so rapidly, that it already surpasses the human in specific tasks that were not thought before. Recent advancements in machine learning algorithms (ML) and its techniques e.g. ‘deep learning’, enable the machine to develop creative content on its own (John, 2016). Meanwhile, in the design domain, people have already begun to consider artificial intelligence as new design material (Holmquist & Erik, 2017). One can consider it an intelligent design material as it can include creativity as individual machine learning models.To understand this new paradigm of using AI in the design process, I created a speculative prototype of a design toolkit called objectResponder (v1.0). A toolkit which enables to design and prototype from the perspective of AI in the ‘wild’(Rogers & Marshall, 2017). I explored this toolkit with six professional designers from various discipline. Initial results suggested that looking at the world from the perspective of the AI may enable designers to balance human and nonhuman biases, enrich a designer’s understanding of the context, and open up unexpected directions for idea generation. The results from the study initiate my graduation project with — identifying what designers need, their concerns and challenges while working with Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning projects. In my thorough investigation with professional designers and design students, I learned that there is a gap in comprehending Artificial intelligence technology in design practice. Such as, designers struggle to incorporate these technologies into their products and services due to the complex nature of it. It was also evident in the literature study that, designers’ need to understand the underpinning principle e.g. limitations of Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning (Dove, Halskov, Forlizzi, & Zimmerman, 2017). Designers’ currently working with Artificial intelligence technologies mentioned that they are looking for a tool or prototyping toolkit which integrates AI with embodied ideation and rapid prototyping methods.To understand the state-of-the-art of AI, a literature study was conducted with the exploration of various ML technologies and prototyping tools. The purpose of this literature study was to understand the state-of-the-art AI and its current state. In this literature studies, I encountered some initial prototypes of tools that showed the possibilities of Artificial intelligence intervening into the design process. Meanwhile, technology exploration with various AI and ML tools and platforms allowed me to learn some facet of current AI and ML tools and ML platforms and perceive its limitations. From this observation, I designed three varied computer vision enabled experiments. Designers from various expertise have participated in the experiments. They were asked to follow the idea generation process with and without an AI’s Computer Vision technique (Machine perspective). Based on designers’ feedback about the experience of working with a designed speculative prototype, I propose a design toolkit called ‘object responder v2.0’ — with further advancement in it. ... Read more

The Medical Psychology and Social Work department of the Wilhelmina Children´s Hospital (WKZ) helps children between 0 and 17 years old and their parents to cope with psychosocial problems caused by medical events and/or (chronic) illness. In therapeutic sessions psychologists help children to overcome their fears and develop effective coping strategies. In addition, the department monitors the development of children that have an increased risk of obstruction in their cognitive development with psychological tests. Treatment and evaluation sessions are performed in a so called 'playroom'. The current playroom does not support the psychologists in the wide range of activities they perform. The department addressed this demand in the form of this graduation project.

Research in the context provided insight into the usage of the playroom, its users and their experiences. The main problem identified for the current environment is that it does not support the psychologists in the different sessions they perform. A flexible environment is wished which can easily be changed from an atmosphere where the child is able to concentrate (stimulant free) to an atmosphere that invites the child to play (stimulant). In addition, the importance of the child feeling at ease at the start of a session became apparent. It was discovered that the journey that the child makes before he/she enters the playroom is of significant influence on this. Children that visit the department for the first time are nervous and do not feel at ease when entering the playroom for the first time. Two design directions were identified. One focusing on improving the therapeutic environment and the other on improving the journey towards this environment. This resulted into one final design 'Gentle First Contact' which consists of a tactfully designed patient journey and a master plan for a new therapeutic environment.

The master plan for a new therapeutic environment consists of a proposed design for the room and recommendations concerning colour, lightening and sound. A flexible environment is created that can be easily adapted to the different sessions that are performed and the characteristics of the child. By turning and sliding panels in the closet, the psychologist can easily and quickly change the atmosphere in the room.

In addition, a patient journey was designed to make children feel at ease at the start of their first therapy session. Several elements are designed to support the child at different moments in the patient journey: a flyer with information about the appointment, a new waiting room experience, a playful transition to the playroom and an ice breaking activity as start of the therapy session. The elements are designed in line with the new vision for WKZ in which every department is related to an animal. The animal assigned to the Medical Psychology and Social Work department is the seahorse and therefore this animal is used as connecting theme to create a gradual journey. The seahorse supports, guides and distracts the child when needed. ... Read more

Nurses working in the ICU of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam are exposed to a vast amount of sounds from medical equipment. The amount of alarms nurses cope with causes alarms fatigue, which causes nurses to become desensitised to alarms. Not only is this a threat to patient safety, it also causes stress.
Care Tunes is a product design that allows nurses to listen to music to monitor their patients. By wearing an earpiece that plays the music, nurses can constantly be aware of their patients health without having to listen to the cacophony that is caused by alarms.
In an iterative design process several versions of
this concept were designed, tested and evaluated. Simultaneously, research was conducted into the experiences nurses of the Erasmus MC have regarding sounds.
This research into the ICU context reveals insights into the experience and underlying mechanisms of alarm fatigue. Among them are the low level of information that alarms carry and the range of personal preferences nurses have when it comes to setting boundaries
for their alarms. Alarms also tend to be used as a reaffirmation by using narrow alarm limits, causing more alarms to sound.
Care Tunes attempts to offer much more information in the sonification of patient data. This lets nurses listen to a pleasant musical stream to get all the information they need about their patient. ... Read more

This project focus on forming a future flying experience for passengers in 2022. The design concept came from the usage of the approach ViP (Vision in Design), by deconstruction of current aircraft environment ,collecting context factors, forming future context. After the future context structure, four types of passengers’ behaviour in aircraft were distilled: “Freestyle working“,”Distant self-care taking”,”Reluctant developing”and “Stand out from the crowds“. Then design ideas and concepts were focused on “Freestyle working“ behaviour, which had a statement(design goal) as “make passengers see aircraft as means to optimise working and relaxing balance“. Four main activities of “Freestyle working”behaviour are also distilled: working, relaxing, connecting with others and learning. By ideation and conceptualisation, as well as iterations of prototyping and testing, the final concept consists of two parts: the seat part and the galley part. These two parts must work together to achieve the effect of the statement. The seat part consists of a re-designed tray table and suggested seat headrest change. The tray table has privacy boards, drawers and other functions to support working and relaxing on the seat. The seat headrest helps passengers in Economy class to sleep better and connect or disconnect with others. Then the galley part is a concept to open the galley and redecorate it into a welcoming atmosphere, where passengers can gather together to serve themselves and socialise with others. The whole concept triggers passengers to see aircraft as a place for actively performing activities, instead of merely a means of transport. At the end of the report, suggestions of improvement of the design as well as implement were given for further steps. ... Read more

This report is the final deliverable for the master track ‘Design for Interaction’ of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Technical University of Delft. It describes the process and results of the graduation project ‘Assuring the occurrence of intended learning situations in a nautical simulator’ that is executed in cooperation with VSTEP, a Dutch company that develops simulators and visual training software. VSTEP learned from its customers that Nautis is suffering from usability issues. It is initially not described where these issues are located. The project therefore starts with desk research, analysing Nautis’ current system. Additional expert interviews are conducted and literature research is executed. Observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted with instructors, the endusers, at five organisations that use Nautis. This has demonstrated that instructors are have a relatively small fraction of time available to develop scenarios. A scenario implies a virtual environment in which target vessels are following pre-specified routes, in order to mimic nautical traffic and thereupon form learning situations for the trainee. A significant amount of the little available time goes into testing and subsequently modifying. Testing usually occurs by the instructor entering one of the bridges connected to the simulator and sailing through his created scenario. Testing suggests verifying the behaviour of target vessels along their respective routes in order to prevent collisions with others, while at the same time checking if learning situations are encountered by a trainee vessel as intended. Modifications are made to the scenario when it does not come out as desired, and extra learning situations are added to accommodate different trainee performances, i.e., their pace through the scenario. This would allow for a better comparison of trainee performances. After modifying a scenario, it is again tested. Nautis offers an inefficient way of developing scenarios, which leaves instructors doubting if a trainee will reach the training goals properly. Therefore it is decided to focus on creating a solution for instructors which them to efficiently design learning situations in scenarios that allow for comparing trainee performance in order to assure that learning goals are reached. A design is proposal consisting of three components; an event creator, a trigger system, and a route generating algorithm. Each component supports the user in efficiently creating learning situations as intended. The first two components have been designed through an iterative process, suggesting sketching, prototyping, and user testing. Seven prototypes were made to validate concepts and test interactions with 13 unique participants. Some participants have tested multiple prototypes. Three instructors have taken part in the user tests. The algorithm is evaluated on its feasibility with an AI expert and desirability with an instructor. The route creator enables the user to efficiently draw out learning situations. A timeline is used to give the instructor quick access to any given timeframe in his scenario. When drawing a route for a target vessel, the currently displayed timeframe moves forward concordantly to the time it takes the particular vessel to travel the distance between the previous and the new waypoint. All target vessels in the scenario are displayed at their respective locations associated to the current timeframe. This offers the instructors direct insight whether a collision occurs, and can as such be immediately avoided. The trigger system allows the instructor to connect specific locations for target vessels in a learning situation to a manually drawn trigger area. The system assures that the target vessels sail their routes following the specified locations when the trainee enters the area with his vessel. This way the learning situation happens as intended by the instructor, independent of the trainee’s performance up until the trigger area. The route generating algorithm is used to save time on scenario development. Instructors are enabled to focus on drawing relevant parts of routes for target vessels that form learning situations. Parts that are deemed irrelevant, i.e., prior to or after a learning situation, are generated to lead the target vessels out of the trainees view. It is calculated that through the design proposal instructors can save more than 80% of their time on the development of a single scenario, ergo more time can be spend on the quality and the variety of the scenarios. Furthermore provides the assurance of the occurrence of learning situations them more guidance during the actual training sessions, and offers better comparison of trainee performances. To conclude, it can thus be stated that the design proposal would support an improvement in educational use of Nautis. ... Read more

This report is an account of the design project about a new playscape for the Child Development and Exercise Center of the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (WKZ)
in Utrecht. The appropriateness the centre's current exercise room for children’s play and ergonomic skills is highly age-dependent and its possibilities for interaction are limited. Therefore, the relocation of the centre in 2018 was used as an opportunity to evaluate the use of Playscape 1.0 and design a new ‘Playscape 2.0’ that supports a variety of interactions for various target groups. The design process results in the proposal of a 'master plan' for the whole room, an adaptable environment (Track Me) and an interactive design (Chase Me). Track Me and Chase Me consists of various elements that can be placed in various positions and in this way support various activities. Track Me can shape a play or training environment, and supports activities concerning gross motor skills (e.g. crawling, climbing, jumping or balancing). Chase Me features two interactive modes (chase and play), and challenges speed and gross manipulative skills (e.g. running, reaching, aiming or manipulating). ... Read more