Mentor/Mentee’s Exciting Journey of Design Thinking using Fusion 360

VAIBHAV KULKARNI: Welcome to Mentor and Mentee's Exciting Journey of Design Thinking Using Fusion 360. I'm Professor Vaibhav Kulkarni, and along with me, my student, the mentee, Siddheshwar Madole. We are from N K Orchid College of Engineering and Technology, Solapur, Maharashtra.

Mentoring gives you an opportunity to facilitate the mindset of a student by sharing the tacit knowledge of design thinking. What we gain through these many years of experience that we want to translate to the student. I'm Professor Vaibhav Kulkarni. I'm the assistant professor in mechanical engineering department in N K Orchid College of Engineering and Technology, Solapur.

I am the innovation ambassador for MHRD MoC, and along with that, I work for 529 standard students for mentor of change in Atal Innovation Mission.

SIDDHESHWAR MADOLE: I'm Siddheshwar Madole, a student of N K Orchid College of Engineering and Technology, Solapur. I am the gold-level ambassador of the Autodesk campus to help Fusion 360 certified user and associated certified in CAM 2.5 million, and also previously worked as an Autodesk Fusion Catalyst for Autodesk education.

So today, I will be sharing my two year journey with Autodesk education from being a student to becoming the Associate in one of the MNC.

VAIBHAV KULKARNI: The association with Autodesk, it started with the introduction of product design engineering as a course. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University Lonere, DBATU, introduced product design engineering course in the engineering curriculum in the year 2018. And then the ball was kept rolling with organized series of bootcamps and workshops for the students.

These are some of the glimpses of the faculty development program that we did in the year 2018. The faculty members were exposed to the environment of the versatile software of Fusion 360, and this exposure gives us the confidence that the photo realistic visualization of the products could be made easily in Fusion 360. And with that confidence, we could able to make many products with these tools.

SIDDHESHWAR MADOLE: Along with the faculty development programs, Autodesk started conducting boot camps and workshop with students, as well. It all started with three-day student expert boot camp organized by Autodesk in January 2019, where total seven DBATU college students participated. And it was very, very nice experience that we learned from very scratch to the assembly of the design.

After continuing with these three different expert boot camps, we conducted two days to design workshop at N K Orchid College of Engineering, Solapur in our institute where we learned AI based design technology, the whole design optimization thing.

After that, in continuation of generative designs, the three different workshops also conducted by the Autodesk on the CAD and CAM, where I got the exposure to the CAM part of the Fusion 360. And the result of all this workshop was I got certified in Fusion 360 software, and also got certified associate in CAM 2.5-Axis Milling.

So these are some of the clips that we captured during the workshops. In the very first image, you can see that this student is sharing his experience about the workshop. In a second, you can see that we are learning generative design answer, just taking us through the whole process of generative design. And in a third, you can see my team. We are attending three days, good.

So now, talking about Autodesk University event India, for the very first time, we attended the Autodesk University 2019 event where we got a lot of industry exposure, where we learned how the different industries collaborate with each other. And again, we came to know about what other students, what they are doing. So again, we looked between different projects.

So where we learn how the whole additive manufacturing goes, so which we previously heard only of these manufacturing things. But we saw that the metallic 3D printing technology, then the [INAUDIBLE] that is the additive manufacturing technology. And with these all things, we got an idea about the design process.

The keynote sessions were absolutely wonderful for us, for the students, where we-- our whole a design mindset got cultivated, and we also started thinking in that direction. So previously, it was not there in our mind about the design thinking, design things and the processes that industries usually use in their daily things.

So like this, we started thinking beyond our academics and whole design mindset got cultivated. So this is my team that we, are around six members, attending the Autodesk University event. And here is the image you can see that is the additive manufacturing of metal. So this was like very, very interesting for us to watch the metal 3D printed part.

So again, we've gone through different projects. This is the bamboo cycle that we saw there. So like these different projects that created a lot of interest in us. And we also started working on the different projects from there. So when we just came back to our institute, and now the result you can see, that we are presenting at the Autodesk University.

VAIBHAV KULKARNI: Four core principles on which any successful innovation will be based on. The first one is build your innovations around your experiences. And Autodesk University gives that experience to the students. Anand Pujari, the educational accounts manager for Autodesk, was instrumental in organizing such events, and we were invited to participate in these events.

Thinking of innovation as a system was what we gain through these experiences. The naturally, Fusion 360 social impact challenge was announced. We, as a team, we participated in this challenge, designing a device to help to tackle the lower back pain. That was the problem, which was thrown to the student. We started the brainstorming on this particular wicked section where the lower back pain was the pain point.

And using design thinking, we could enable the design innovation in that way. To help us in this and to support us, we got the mentoring of Dr. Sandeep Bhagwat, who is the renowned physiotherapist in Solapur. So this was the team of five members now, along with Siddheshwar, Rishikesh, Vishwesh, Dr. Sandeep Bhagwat, and myself, we participated on the brainstorming sessions of developing something as a solution to the back pain.

This is the design thinking process that we applied. We started with the first initial step of empathizing. A human centric approach of design thinking starts with empathizing with the user. Defining the problem critically, updating on the possibilities the world of possibilities for the solution. Developing many iterations of the prototype, and successfully testing these prototypes.

So this is the process, which is the bottom line, E-D-I-P-T. We started with the first step, the empathize. User survey was playing a prominent role here. The sample size which we have selected for this was 150 users. We asked them the questions in the local language as well as in English.

The first question was, do you experience any sort of back pain after your working hours? Naturally, the answer was yes. 84.62% was the percentage of saying yes. Mention the part where you experience the maximum pain? Upper back, mid back or lower back. Most of the users, they faced this problem at the lower back.

Choose any such type of device, which would be there to prevent such type of devices. What could be the nature of this device, whether it could be a wearable or seatable or other? So seatable got the maximum count. And with this user survey, we started the development of defining the problem very quickly.

At the define stage, AASAN was developed in the problem statement. Around 50% of the employees in India suffer from some sort of issues relating to the back in the form of back pain. Majority is from the information and technology. Those who needs to sit for several hours, 4 million people of the Indian population, they are working with the IT sector. Central railways, the banks, schools, and so on and so forth. The list will go on. And this was the huge percentage where we can make an impact.

Ideation was the stage where we thought of many such possibilities, but these possibilities are checked on three parameters. The first one is the desirability. The second one is its feasibility. The third one was its viability. The desirability, viability, and feasibility are the three parameters on which we brainstormed and we could able to come to a particular solution with the help of Dr. Sandeep Bhagwat, who turned our mindset from the wearable to the seatable.

And this is the solution called AASAN for this wicked problem of lower back pain, which actively recognizes the position of your ischial tuberosity and alert the user about their posture. It is wrong or right?

SIDDHESHWAR MADOLE: Now talking about the prototyping stage of AASAN and the designing stage of AASAN. So initially, we started discussing about the whole problem statement with one of the medical expert, Dr. Sandeep Bhagwat, from where we came to know that not only we have to detect the forward slouching, we have to also detect the side tilts. So we searched for the products which are do such kind of recognition.

So there were no such products we got who like detects side tilts with forward slouching as well. So this was the very first task we got to design the device which can detect your site tilts and forward and backwards slouching. So for that, we came up with the sensor based seat.

So for that, we, again, it was a seat where it will-- the seat is going to be placed on the office chairs for the maximum time. So we started going through the different office chairs available in the market, their sitting area, all their sizes. So from that, we came to the final dimension of the seat, around the 400 by 450 by 35. So we finalized our seat dimensions.

Now it's time to finalize the sensors. So we finalized the force sensing resistors for the of whatever the load coming from the spine. And from that for from those sensors, we actually started getting the values. And we kept them below the exact human sitting pressure points and in a thigh region, so that we get the forward slouching readings and as well as the side tilts.

So we used the medium density foam for the cushioning purpose. And this is the testing thing where we started. So very first, we used the Autodesk Tinkercad software for the virtual simulation, where we got the exact results that we were aiming for. And from that, we came to the very first-- we said the ugly prototype of it, where we started testing it with very low range, low weight range person to the high weight range person.

And we just kept on doing this and after that we came to know that the foam density also matters when it comes to the transferring load from your whole back to the sensors. So from there, we shifted to the-- from there, we started shifting to different materials, and we finally came to the latex-based foam. And in this way, we designed whole seat. And we came up with the minimum viable prototype of our whole solution.

Now smart, talking about the smart addition to AASAN. So we kept AASAN not as simple as only detecting the side tilts and the forward tilts. So we also thought of here, why not to give an a complete package of an app and a seat? So we thought of giving a, we thought of giving an app which will actively monitor your sitting position first. And after that, it will record your progress every day.

At the weekend, you can check your progress, your improvement percentage, your number of slouching time. And also, we have added the yoga sessions gallery which will help you to keep your back healthy. And also we have created the doctor and patient gallery. There you can schedule your appointments with the local doctors and the yoga trainers for your issues.

So here, during whole defining the problem statement, we came to know that the lower back pain market is expected to register a compound annual growth rate of 5.2% till 2025. So this was taken by one of the research paper of the news. So we believe that the prevention is better than cure. So just preventing the back pain at early stage of happening it, so that would be the better to keep you healthy and you can improve the quality of life.

VAIBHAV KULKARNI: The culmination of all these efforts that we are taking to develop AASAN in its totality was been manifested into getting the winner position in social impact challenge. We were the semifinalist in the National Innovation contest. So thinking of innovation as a system, building the culture of innovation, and adopting a disciplined approach to achieve this, these are the core principles with which we were moving ahead for the development of AASAN.

SIDDHESHWAR MADOLE: While the designing of the AASAN, after designing, or while designing the AASAN, we were also started participating in other competitions, as well. And here was the very, very first design or ideation that we did for the event of the COVID-19 situation. So this is basically the replacement for the thermal scanners.

So what we thought here, why not to design a thermal goggle which can monitor the crowded region? So you can, the health workers can easily scan the people, they can detect the COVID suspects very easily. So in this way, we started thinking and we came up with this thermal goggle. And it is also recognized by the Autodesk ambassador hub and for which I received the third prize of this, that is a bronze badge for this whole edition.

VAIBHAV KULKARNI: This is portable vein finder, one of our colleague Mr. Shani, he floated this idea of generating a portable vein finder. In the childhood, due to the fleshy mass on the hand, it is quite difficult for the medical staff to allocate the IV fluid in the veins. And due to the flesh on the hand, the particular vein is not able to identify.

This was the problem which was identified and addressed by our students, and they came up with this fantastic solution of getting the LED ring around the hand like a band wearable, and there, we could able to identify the particular vein with the IV fluid can be given.

This is the third innovation, the design innovation the students made. Flexion angle limiter. The COVID situation, the pandemic was on the peak, and it was said that your habit of touching your face and nose is a prominent feature where you could susceptible to the COVID assets. To limit that particular movement of hand, we developed the flexion angle limiter. This is the 3D printed part of flexion angle limiter.

SIDDHESHWAR MADOLE: After going through the Autodesk design academy course of generative design, so I thought why not to apply the generative design on the wheel, which I saw in one of the Volkswagen project? So I applied the generative design on the car rim, and I got this result. So this was a learning experience for me to get the generative design, to create the generative design of a car rim because when the designing of car rim, it comes a lot of constraints and a lot of things.

So I've gone through all these things through referring to the research papers, and I came up with this generative design solution. After that I again applied the generative design on a skateboard hanger. And this was one of the project. Again I got inspiration from the one off the Autodesk project, and I again after the expert level Autodesk design academy course, I applied the generative design on the skateboard hanger, and I generated this solution as the design optimized design.

Not talking about design thinking journey, how we kept the whole journey continued in our Institute. So in second year itself, I got a chance to work as a Fusion 360 catalyst. Anand sir give me a chance to work as a Fusion 360 catalyst in the second year. And then from there, all these things again, all the things started very effectively. I say during whole my internship, I interacted around 300 plus students through webinars. I collaboratively worked with them. I also supported a lot of students to get their projects done, and also help them to complete to achieve their goals in a project.

Anand sir gave me a chance to present at different institutes, along with Raja sir, me, Anand sir, we're both [INAUDIBLE] so we started a special 30 batch, which is like a student community of the DDBATU students, where we started taking the workshops and offering the process or offering the Autodesk design academy courses to students and get them familiar with the Fusion 360 software.

With all this experience and the work experience and all the knowledge, I finally landed as a manufacturing engineer in a CYIENT, and I'm very thankful for the whole support of the Sir Pujari sir, and Raja sir, Vaibhav sir, Aditi sir, during my whole academic self.

VAIBHAV KULKARNI: This is how students journey from second year end up working with science as a manufacturing engineering. Mentorship is full of such footprints. This is an exciting journey of working with the students. They keep your mind [INAUDIBLE].

And with these efforts, it's not about the goal, but it is more about the journey. And that journey is more interesting and exciting with the students. And still today, we are continuing our efforts in the design thinking to make the design innovations in the future, as well. Thank you.