Stage 2: Exploratory Research (Part two)

2/6–10/12

Interview With Car Enthusiast Bob Monroe

• Bob has always been a tinkerer, who started customizing his bikes as a child and then moved onto cars when he turned 16. Being a maker of things, he sought to learn through different sources of information. He would learn through books, talking to friends and by even taking things apart.
• His motivation to learn has been result driven — he wanted to make his bike look cool or his car to be customized in a certain way.

“I had an idea in my head of how I wanted it (the car) to work, the challenge was to learn the physical process to get it there.”

• While his process of learning has to do with a lot of hands on experience, he also emphasized on first needing to grasp the intellectual part of customizing cars — know how the basic parts work and how the physics works. Then have to get the hands on experience.

“Understanding the intellectual part of working with cars is important”

• His experience from hands on learning has given him a good feel for mechanics. After years of practice, he knows approximately what the right torque is just by feel. When working on a car and its parts, its important to play around with the system and understand the requirements that each tool has to deliver in order for a function to work.

“A lot of this is grown up play.”

Effective Ways Of Learning / Teaching

• When you have a self-directed vision of learning, it is also important to know your limitations. When Bob had to work out the electrical systems in his car, he just couldn’t figure it out. So his next step was to take it to a mechanic who knew in more detail about the system and its configuration. He took this as an opportunity to learn and asked the mechanic to walk him through how he identified the problem, what was wrong, and how he was going to fix it.
• He differentiated on the different aspects of learning how to fix his car — the electrical system was purely diagnostic, which he learnt through reading and instruction manuals and the metal work was much more hands on, which he learnt through watching and physical play.

Where can Technology Help in Learning / Teaching

• “An extra set of hands — a set of robotic hands that would respond to me. Grip a little harder…”
• “Alexa to answer sensible questions…” An AI mentor or peer that can guide him with targeted knowledge. “She should know what type of materials I’m working with (which bolt, what wrench, etc.) as well as what step in the process I am. There’s nothing worse than having to read through instructions when I’m already four steps ahead.”
• Bob mentioned the increasing scope of voice interactions.
• “Give me the shop manual with an explanation of what’s going on and diagrams.” Visualizing manual procedures is a great way to work better. He spoke of projections and image overlays on tools and parts, that could inform him of next steps.

The business case for mixed reality

As a Professor of Business Technologies at CMU and the Director for Online Hybrid MBA program, Bob had great insights on the business case for mixed reality.

• An expert and a hobbyist have different goals — hobbyist wants to get it right, the mechanic wants efficiency. — Proficiency vs. efficiency
• Who has capacity and willingness to pay? Looking at it from the ends of our work spectrum, a hobbyist would not invest in very expensive technology or products for his craft, whereas an expert, who uses his tools and knowledge everyday, would see a long term benefit in the investment.

“Vocational schools/ distance learning programs would have a clear need and the financial capacity to support this technology”

• “For a hobbyist, you’re competing against a book and youtube, at most lynda.com which is a very low cost tool.” There are many free and easily accessible resources for a hobbyist and to compete with them our product or service would have to supply to the economic demand.

Business Benefits of MR in a Structured Learning Environment

• Cost could be borne by students or institution
• Could provide remote hands-on training
• Could double down on teaching — one teach could provide training to more students
• Could allow master mechanic to support a less skilled trainer in the classroom.

Phone Interview With Vinita Israni, GE Aviation

GE works in several areas — aviation, nuclear, wind, lighting. Vinita is currently working in Aviation, designing software products for airlines. Her most recent project is working with a freight airline that is a contract delivery service for large companies like Amazon, Fedex. They are trying to design a software solution to reduce the manual entry and paper involved in the maintenance of these jet engines.

Talking about Maintenance Procedures at GE

• There are various levels of hierarchy. Engineers order the repairs, which are sent to the maintenance control center at the airport who then sends the tasks to the line maintenance team via paper task cards.Engineer reviews a safety event that pops up in their tools, then analyzes the data and orders a repair.
• Engineers use manuals, logbooks, and intuition to recommend a repair.
• It is too expensive/ difficult to send an engineer to every airport to fix the problem, so they rely heavily on their software tools and analytical skills to assess the problem and recommend a repair from afar. Then, they have to trust that the line maintenance crew is repairing the engine as requested.
• Points of communication are different — via phone and email. There is no documentation or record made prior to communication, only after.
• Different people are responsible for fixing different parts of the engine. Each person knows just enough information to fix the part they are responsible for.
• There is a lot of paper involved in this process. Task cards are paper, logbook to record when maintenance has been done is paper. This paper has to be moved from airport to airport physically.
• The life of a jet engine is usually 20–40 years. Maintenance has to be performed every few months.

On Training

• Pilots are generally trained on one family of planes because the mental model they use to fly is unique to that plane. Requires a shift in mental model to be able to fly a different type of plane (Airbus vs. Boeing)
• Technicians are trained before hand, but need manual guides when performing tasks.

Interview With Dan Siewiorek, Human Computer Interaction Director, CMU

Dan has designed or been involved with the design of nine multiprocessor systems and has been a key contributor to the dependability design of over two dozen commercial computing systems. He has also designed and constructed over 20 generations of mobile computing systems. We interviewed Dan Siewiorek about his work in wearable computing for maintenance and repair of large machinery for the US Army.

Dan did work in wearable computing with three goals:

• Procedures — something that requires a checklist to be checked off as work is completed.
• Work orders — information that needs to be collected about a machine and passed from one person to another. This involves a lot of back and forth. The challenge with work orders was that there was no shared vocabulary when sending work orders for repair. Some people would call it a scratch, gouge, dent. Just limiting the options made it go so much more smoothly.
• Collaboration in real time — sharing of information/ asking questions about work in real time. The challenge with collaboration in real time, or virtual coaches is that “I either have to have a very strong mental model about what you’re fixing or I have to be able to easily instruct you to use/ fix something even if I can’t see what you’re seeing.” In his study he realized that just being able to point to objects or having a over-the-shoulder view of the environment made collaboration much easier.

On adoptions of new tools and processes:

• “You have to first work within the current process rather than changing everything at once.” During his research, Dan was quick to notice that disrupting existing methods and procedures with new systems, would disorient the users. A better way of designing was by creating supplementary changes to the existing methods, or by introducing changes at different intervals of time.
• “No matter what orientation on the body, interaction needs to be the same. ”When speaking of wearable computing, he emphasized on the technology being agile and flexible. The technology would have to move with the movement and function of the body.

“System needs to be durable yet dynamic. It needs to move with the user in some rugged environments.”

On digital/ physical work:

“ The more vivid the virtual world (the higher the fidelity), the less time they’ll spend in the physical world. Too much information in the digital world can be bad. They will miss things on the surface. You need to keep people rooted in the physical world. ”

Interview with E.Louise Larson at Prototype PGH

Prototype PGH is a feminist makerspace that provides resources and programming for people that might feel otherwise excluded from the maker community to help them gain the skills and knowledge in using technology. They have their headquarters in the Bloomcraft Building in Oakland, where they host programming and workshops in makerspaces around the city.

“We want to make people feel comfortable in traditional makerspaces. We provide foundational courses (basic skills, etiquette, etc.) so that they can come back to these maker spaces and feel a sense of ownership over the space.”

Prototype provides courses for people that have some experience with tools but don’t have enough skills or confidence to scaffold their knowledge.

“We want to provide enough knowledge so that our students can become self-directed learners.”