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For everyone who ever asked me to take a picture of the inside of the Design Buildings! Taken 10 minutes ago this is LEGO Design building 19-02 coming down.
Until six months ago this building housed the LEGO IT servers and our back-up generator and most importantly the room you can see into now had the LEGO deleted element storage with parts that dated back to the early 1980's packed carefully away in hudreds of cardboard boxes with dozens of bags of elements in each one. Now it's being torn down to make way for a new canteen and office block. Don't worry - the elements are safe in their new home!
Continuing the de-clutter of my house. 100 CDs for 'Design Builder' an educational CD-ROM I developed in 1995/6 for the 'Innovative Design Engineering Research group in the Manufacturing Systems department at the University of Hertfordshire. It was a joint project under an early HEFCE initiative (TLTP) to encourage the use of learning technologies in universities, developed with Sheffield Hallam University.
The CD-ROM took the user through the design of a winch and demonstrated 'concurrent engineering' principles. The aim was to design a winch that was able to drag a RNLI Lifeboat up a ramp and to ensure that the design came in on cost. Each user was given a different problem and they could build their design using tens of thousands of real-world components. Virtual experts watched the user's decisions and would try to interject to offer advice from 'their perspective' on why decisions were good or bad. Unlike most educational CD-ROMs there was no right answer and the advice offered would often conflict with advice from other virtual experts. For example the company's accountant might complain that the materials chosen were expensive, while the materials expert would agree that the choice seemed most appropriate for the manufacturing process chosen.
Some serious blood and sweat went into this product. I know at times I was working 120 hours a week, with computers rendering 3D 'solutions' round the clock for weeks on end.
I think 2000 were produced and we sold about 150, along with a number of site licenses. Unfortunately, because the project was part-funded by HEFCE (the English University funding body) we had to sell the CD at 'cost' price (£60). So unfortunately, there was no way the development team could survive. Other TLTP projects which had chosen to develop simple 'electronic books' that could be churned out quickly, oddly where better equipped to continue. They could sell each 'book' for a similar price as our complex learning tool. Our product had about 4 'man years' development work in it. So there was no way we could quickly churn out new tools. I guess it wasn't a fair situation and the rules lead to a self-defeating situation, where lots of educational resources were produced but weren't updated because the teams had to disband within a year of completion. But we were idealistic and believed that we should be pushing the boundaries if we wanted lecturers to start to think about adopting electronic learning materials.
Most of the CDs were disposed off by the Uni years ago. Myself and the lecturer in charge of the project kept a box each. I don't know why as we had made the product freely available to download by then. I think we couldn't bring ourselves to throw them away because of all the effort that had gone into making the product. But I'm the only member left and I closed down the project's server earlier in the year. So I think it's time to say goodbye and get some space back. Pity, we were a very idealistic team and even 16 years after it's release, I've seen few pieces of educational software that attempt to be as adventurous as we were with this project.
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University of Michigan President Santa Ono on his first visit to the Wilson Student Team Project Center on the North Campus of the University of Michigan on Thursday, February 23, 2023.
Ono is the 15th president of the University of Michigan. He assumed office on October 14, 2022.
Photo: Brenda Ahearn/University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Communications and Marketing