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This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to transfer design principles identified in nature to human-centered design problems. The Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) program uses biologically inspired design to teach high school engineering in a way that uniquely engages students in the natural world. For high school students, identifying natural systems’ analogues for human design problems can be challenging. Furthermore, it is often the case that students focus on and transfer superficial structures, rather than underlying design principles. Based on the Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) design ontology, we developed a modified cognitive scaffold called Structure- Function-Mechanism (SFM) to assist students and teachers with identifying functionally similar biological analogies and identifying and transferring design principles. In this paper we describe SFM and its importance in BID and our observations from teaching SFM to high school teachers during a multi-week professional development workshop in the summer of 2020. Based on teachers’ work artifacts, transcriptions of discussions, and focus groups, we highlight the challenges of teaching SFM and our plans to scaffold this important concept for students and teachers alike.
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Mechanism Design Theory in Control Engineering: A Tutorial and Overview of Applications in Communication, Power Grid, Transportation, and Security Systems
This article provides an introduction to the theory of mechanism design and its application to engineering problems. Our aim is to provide the fundamental principles of mechanism design for control engineers and theorists, along with state-of-the-art methods in engineering applications. We start our exposition with a brief overview of game theory, highlighting the fundamental notions necessary to introduce mechanism design. Then, we offer a comprehensive discussion of the principles of mechanism design. Finally, we explore four key applications in engineering, that is, communication networks, power grids, transportation, and security systems.
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- PAR ID:
- 10508514
- Editor(s):
- NA
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE Control Systems
- Volume:
- 44
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1066-033X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 20 to 45
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/MCS.2023.3329919
