Welcome to the 2023 Product Design Engineering Degree Show

 

Craig Whittet
Head of Department, Product Design Engineering

 

This is the time of year when emotions run high, deadlines have been met, exams are finished, 3D printers are no longer working away in the background and the cloud has a break from processing CAD files. It’s now time to celebrate the end of the beginning. PDE is a collaboration between the School of Design at the Glasgow School of Art, and the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow - two distinctive educational cultures that are integral to the PDE experience. In most cases, the beginning of the students PDE experience starts with a short, sharp project on day 1 of Year 1. A chance to meet new friends, work collectively, design engineer, build and test. The building blocks for the next years of study and hopefully some fun along the way!

PDE projects always focus on how technology can improve the quality of life, celebrate diversity and embrace the opportunity to develop inclusive and responsible solutions to real world challenges. The contents, skills and methods that you see in this publication are not the result of one year of PDE studies. They are the accumulation of either four or five years of study and it’s a pleasure to share these projects with you.

During the final year, the students have been developing connections and networks that enable them to bridge the gap from academia to professional life. Several students have worked with industrial partners this year and the PDE team would like to thank them for their input and support. We are always looking to develop our range of external project partners; if you are interested, or know someone that would benefit from being involved with PDE, please let me know. Thanks also go to Autodesk for their continued support and partnership, their approach to democratising technology is highly valued by PDE.

Finally, the PDE team would like to wish the students all the very best, the beginning of the next stage in their PDE experience is imminent…..please keep connected!

John Shackleton
BSc MA PhD FHEA. Head of Discipline, Mechanical Engineering at the University of Glasgow

 

The Product Design Engineering programme holds a special place in the portfolio of engineering courses at the University of Glasgow, sitting as it does at the intersection of two rather different cultures. It is, however, both a strength of the programme, and its challenge, to blend those two cultures; bringing appropriate technologies to bear in satisfying the needs of society and individuals. The projects presented here represent the culmination of many years of endeavour by the students to develop the knowledge and skills to do that.

I congratulate the students on their achievements and wish them every success in their future careers.

Lauren McMullan (2023)
VP Shark & Robotics CORE General Manager London

It’s exciting to return to the Art School for the PDE Degree Show. Your energy, curiosity, and creativity are palpable!

Let’s start by talking about failure. In Product Design Engineering, you know that if your initial ideas don’t fail, you need to consider whether you’re being bold enough to create a breakthrough final product. Breakthroughs require a lot of small, early failures that you learn from. You question assumptions and test concepts to gather consumer insights. You make iterative adjustments to your design, materials, or build. The same applies to life – don’t be afraid to fail! Don’t hold yourself back for the fear of it. If you listen closely to CEO’s & other extremely successful people, the thing that sets them apart is they embrace failure! Some of them even enjoy failing – because it’s a sign that they still have the courage to take risks, to push themselves out of their comfort zone.

Each of you aspires to have a fulfilling career in Product Design Engineering. You love what you get to do! This love, however, isn’t always easy – it takes humility, resilience, and perseverance to embrace the unexpected. Careers are no more linear than the product design engineering/development process. The great news is that PDE has equipped you with the essential skills to do this and more – to thrive along the way! I know that if you apply your PDE mindset to your career, you’ll have one that’s rich and rewarding.

Communicating your ideas clearly is foundational to any career. You might think some people possess this skill naturally, but as someone who graduated a little terrified about speaking to groups, I assure you this skill is learnable. But don’t wait until you’re ready (you won’t be until you’ve practice), just get started!

Get even more comfortable managing conflicting priorities. Unless it’s all changed since I studied PDE, you would have had Art School hand-ins that conflicted with Engineering exams. Critical exams all bunched together with barely enough time to switch gears between them. Looking back, I think this was foundation in what it’s like to work in a real company that hasn’t been designed to optimise YOUR performance.

Never stop challenging the status quo! GREAT only happens when you challenge. Few people are brave enough to do so, so it’ll set you apart. Possibly even more importantly, develop your capacity to accept challenge with grace. Challenge to your ideas, to your approach, to your values even. It takes intelligence and humility to change your mind. The ability to both give and accept challenge with grace will distinguish you anywhere you go!

Frank Stephenson (2022)
Design Director, Frank Stephenson Design

 

Curiosity is the grand spark, the big bang that kicks everything off. Because without that, we don’t innovate. I wouldn’t say it’s the main ingredient, but it’s certainly the first ingredient you need for everything else to succeed along the process.

In the design world, we can’t stay with a solution that we’ve always had. It’s always about finding a better way because there’s competition out there, and if you can’t find a way to adapt and to change, to find a solution for any problem, then you’re going to fall behind. Like everything else in the world, progress is the result of learning. The most important thing in a designer’s career is staying relevant and that means searching for new technologies that will let your work showcase the most recent developments and strive for better efficiency with less of a harmful impact on the environment.

The holy grail of design is to create a design piece that will last a long time, making it far more than just a trendy product. And I think the best examples of timeless design are in nature. In other words, nature doesn’t do trendy. Nature is all about survival, so things are designed to work as well as they can, or adapt, for the longevity.

So, if you take inspiration from nature, you are bound to end up with something that

looks good for a long period of time.

Even as society evolves and innovation and technology change our workflow, my advice to young designers remains unchanged: Quality over quantity. One good idea is always better than a hundred not so good ideas. Think about the design problem first, then think about the design solution, visualize it, draw it, refine it and go with it. That saves time and energy. Only show your best work. You are only as good as what you present so never present something you are not proud of.

First impressions count. You only ever get one chance to make a first impression, make it a great and lasting one. Don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness. Initiative is a good thing. Complacency is not.

Trust your gut. Instinct should be a main driver so learn to rely on your own opinion.

But always remember that you’re not always right. So, listen and consider but be your own judge.

These past few years of confusion and uncertainty provide the opportunity for radical innovation. It is an opportunity to ponder people’s future interactions with their daily surroundings and map out new design challenges, for example, by increasing personal hygiene and safety levels. The tragic circumstances will bring rise to a new age of design. I believe the world will emerge from the crisis more sophisticated, intelligent and caring than it went into it. As designers and design engineers, you have the opportunity to embrace it, and make a lasting impact on the world for the better.

Steven Parkinson
Project Programme Manager Autodesk Education Experiences

 

Questions for the next chapter.

There is something quite unique about the Product Design Engineering programme at The Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow. A tight knit group, much more than just a cohort of students, educators and industry. You will continue to be part of this community even after your graduation celebrations.

The world has undoubtably changed at an accelerated speed during the past few years, due to mainly the pandemic. During the pandemic, we should not lose sight of COP21, which took place in the great city of Glasgow, bringing together the world’s most powerful leaders.

Today is a celebration of your time in Product Design Engineering, but it is also an inauguration into a career where you can genuinely make change. In addition to making change, you can be an influencer of making change.

Autodesk are proud to be a partner of the Product Design Engineering programme. We make technology to help others make positive impact. At Product Design Engineering, you use our technology in the most incredible ways.

A degree show is a snapshot of what you have achieved so far, but I challenge you all to ask yourself these questions after today:

As you move away from your studies, how can the ‘PDE community’ you have grown to be part of enable you to become a better product design engineer in your day to day work?

How can you use your skills to not just be carbon neutral, but to have positive impact on the planet?

Generation Alpha are being born onto this planet right now. How can you be the influencer that shapes this generation?

How can you use technology ‘for good’, to help you have positive impact in things you design and make for others?

Jude Pullen
PDE Alumni 2009. Newbery Medal, and IMechE Medal winner

Winner of the 2020 IMechE Alastair Graham-Bryce “Imagineering” Award, Jude currently works as an independent Creative Technologist & Prototyping Expert. He specialises in creating work which helps companies bridge Art and Technology, and that has both Creative and Commercial impact - his work has also been recognised by FastCompany and Shorty Awards, among others. Before this, he enjoyed working with other crazy ones, in companies like Dyson, Sugru and LEGO. He was a featured Inventor on the iconic BBC’s Big Life Fix, Children In Need, and also David Jason’s Great British Inventions. He lives in London, but can be found most weekends in Epping Forest building things, and enjoying nature with his family.

 

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm
Delight The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

— Emily Dickinson, 1263

I came to this poem a decade after graduating from PDE. I’m dyslexic, and not a scholar of literature, but this floored me as a Creative, a Professional, and even a Parent. Perhaps you’ll interpret it differently, but as I hear it, it’s about truth - and knowing how to deliver it with empathy.

The irony is, you stand now, with the world before you. Excited, certainly. Apprehensive, probably. I hope nobody in the penultimate year is reading this; but the fact is your grade was more of a ‘muse’ than a destination. Something to aim for, but now you have it, whether it be a First or a Third, the real work of applying what you learned over 4-5 years, begins now, as a new and vibrant chapter.

Your ‘worst’ project, by the grade awarded it, might ironically be the thing that gets you a job. Not because employers seek failure, but because they look for humility and tenacity to progress from it - what did you learn from that hard lesson, from the mistakes, from the doubt - and crucially, how did you bounce back? Conversely, you might have ‘aced’ an exam, but somehow were left feeling it was a pyrrhic victory, as although you can provide the expected answers with aplomb, you never really felt you tested yourself, surprised yourself, had fun - and perhaps your prospective employer might see through this too.

My provocation is not to disregard the years of study and the kudos, of what is truly a unique and world-respected degree, from two outstanding institutions - but rather to realise you have been schooled not to answer questions of problems already solved, but rather to investigate unresolved mysteries, and to be thinkers as well as doers!

As much as Da Vinci is cited by pop culture, few paths of education will actively blend Science, Humanities and Arts as well as PDE - lest we forget the “A” in STE(A)M is what truly gives Logic and Reason their ability to become transcendent, and change humanity, both for the individual and the collective. The best Scientists are also Artists, and vice versa.

But here’s what your employer won’t tell you for many years, and what mentors of mine have [in essence] counselled me over time, tears and sometimes tea: “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant”. As a PDE graduate, your unparalleled ability to discover the truth will not always be received with open arms - simply by your being enthusiastically ‘correct’. Rather, it will be your ability to speak with humility, an appreciation of timing, and measured persuasion. Of course you have been expertly schooled in empathising with ‘Users’ - but do not underestimate how this extends beyond the person who merely uses a product, to *all* of the people involved in taking that idea to fruition. Many of those people will have radically different views to you, and many motives will be hidden (even to them), and will require patience to craft a story that sets the potential of an idea free. As liberals we claim to love ‘diversity’ - well here it is, in all its nuance.

Brace yourself!

And so Dickinson’s poem is perhaps the greatest wisdom, and practical advice I can think of that a. fits on a post-it note, and b. may save you from losing your cool with people, feeling deflated, or just missing the bigger picture in the heat of the moment, and c. makes a change from quoting Steve Jobs. I am certainly still very much heeding this advice to this day (and often failing short!), but I hope you’ll consider the notion that the path that any creative takes is to engage with unfamiliar people, uncertain experiments and to confront (Al Gore pun intended), as this is what truly raises our game, makes our work potent and meaningful - and informs you who your real friends and allies are.

Love the adventure of uncovering old truths, and creating new and better truths through your ideas, discoveries and collaborations. But if you find yourself breaking new ground, take a moment to pause and remember Emily...