November 13, 2012, A. Richard Newton Global Technology Leaders' Conference, UC Berkeley—Carl Bass from Autodesk presented a view of engineering innovation by design. After a short video, he said that this is the best time to be an engineer. The potential for innovation now meets the access to markets, tools and money.
There are three trends that are driving this movement. Business unusual is the new way innovators get access to funding. Kickstarter is generating from $25k to $100M in funding for new ideas. The VC industry is very disrupted by this movement, because crowd sourcing gives power to the crowd. In the past, technology trickled down from then military and aerospace industries. Now it goes from commercial to the military.
Next is the prospect of infinite computing. Compute resources are no longer scarce, so the idea of massively parallel ubiquitous computing becomes feasible. A smart phone has 30 thousand times more compute power than the computers running the Space Shuttle. Costs have dropped so the computer is the lowest cost asset available for most projects. Eventually, these trends will result in advanced sensors and computers that are everywhere.
And finally, the advances in digital fabrication. Software-controlled manufacturing is emerging in multiple forms. The four main technologies are additive—to build parts from a collection of dots, subtractive—computer-controlled numerical cutting, laser, etc., robotic assembly, and nano-scale assembly.
The new tools enable design complexity with no limits. Wake Forest is developing partial organs for repairs, USC is making 3-D building blocks for basic bio structures. Tools are creating objects for replacing almost anything.
The biological fields are quickly moving into the nano-scale biological synthesis and assembly areas. Harvard is experimenting with DNA origami, the ability to fold molecules into unique shapes for a specific function. These initial trials will lead to nano-scale robots that will perform immensely complex functions within the body. Self-assembly and bio-synthesis will overcome the cube functions associated with the 3-D shapes of most bio materials.
When humans address tools, you have to consider our history. Starting with the stone ax, tools defined who we are and also changed the people using those tools. For example, our hands and muscles changed to give us better grip on the tools, longer fingers, and the thumb moved to oppose the fingers. Tools became the enabler for our development while also setting limits on our capabilities.
One issue with tools is that they inhibit the creative process. At the same time, some people need the constraints to accomplish their jobs. For some, the worst thing to start is with a blank screen. Their design process is like the game of Battleship, you test out an idea, miss, and try again.
A different design process is a mobile sketchbook. Innovation needs smart, passionate people who are allowed to work and fail. The mobility changes the workplace. New designs need to consider both the look and functions as important parameters. Tools can allow the various components to be recombined in different ways, then the analysis and physics can interactively view the digital prototypes to increase understanding.
This new design process has a reality capture structure, and is the reason for starting with a blank screen. The capabilities of 3-D scanners and cameras and the ability to construct a 3-D view from a few 2-D photos in an artificial computerized tomography process enables anyone to scan, modify, and print almost any object. Now you can even attach a camera to a quad-copter and do a fly-around to capture a full 3-D image of even large objects.
New tools are using the Web access and cloud-based processing to provide better understanding of a function. Model-based design on the cloud allows for simulations and optimizations that were not possible before. New technology can replace old functions. The availability of massive compute farms allows for multivariate spaces and analysis. Once the existing compute capacity is done with the processing and rendering, the output can be sent to any device, even a mobile platform like a smart phone or tablet.
For example, the Xbox had a thermal failure problem. The tools to analyze the thermal densities and available airflow allowed Microsoft to fix the problems with only small tooling changes to move more air to the hot spots. This is important because the cost of a mistake goes up by an order of magnitude for every level in the supply chain.
In another example, the new Shanghai tower took on a new shape because the designer started with the idea that they wanted to minimize the materials for the building. The design needed analysis of stress, loads, and wind resistance. The tower demonstrates the possibilities of a design when the previous constraints of a stack of boxes is eliminated.
Designers should start to look at biology for inspiration. The engineering can now copy biological functions in ways that were not previously possible, and nature has had millions of years to perfect most of the functions. Biological functions are ripe for new processes, and synthesized biology will need even more powerful tools to reach its promises.