On the evening of June 27th, 2018, Zhejiang University held the 4th Information Product Design product release conference with the theme of Empowerment. More than 600 students and professionals from universities, internet and design companies gathered at the Zijingang Campus Theatre to participate in the event. The conference consists of three sections: Vision, Path and Origin. It fully demonstrated Zhejiang University’s achievements in talent cultivation, academic research, innovation and entrepreneurship in the field technology design.
Next Lab Launch: Science + Design + Engineering + Art
The Vision section focused on technology design driven innovation and entrepreneurship. Associate Professor Zhang Kejun presided over the launching of the Next Lab Technology Design Innovation and Entrepreneurship Laboratory of Zhejiang University, and released exploratory results after five months of preparation. A sample of products include: education APP Everybody, which redefines health education; Posterize, an intelligent poster generation tool based on big data with a RNN style migration algorithm; X-Spider, a shape-switching, hexapod robot that uses the DNN algorithm; 吟诗, an education APP that enhances children's poetry education through interaction; “Step Beats”, a tool that automatically generates adaptive music while running. Vice Dean of the College of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Zhejiang University and Minister of Student Affairs of the Party Committee of Zhejiang University, Wu Xiaocheng, and Vice Dean of College of Computer Science and Technology, Chen Wei, delivered a speech expressing their vision and support for Next Lab.
Technology Empowers Traditional Design Elements
Team representatives of the “Origami Robot” Project
The Path section mainly introduced the education and research model of technology design of Zhejiang University featuring cross-border collision. During the period, Ms. Yang Ying presided over the release of the “Origami Robot” project, which was designed by students from the Product Design program of Class 2015.
Dr. Tao Ye
Dr. Tao Ye released the This is a Book project completed by exchange students from the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
Dr. Wang Guanyun
Dr. Wang Guanyun, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, gave a keynote speech on Cross-Boundary Collision Empowered Technology Design, demonstrating the abstraction, association and influence of design thinking. He also shared examples of product design made by Zhejiang University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University.
Artificial intelligence Empowers Future Life
The main part of DIP2018 was the Origin section.
In this year's Information Product Design program, students from the Industrial Design Department of Zhejiang University (Class of 2015) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design formed six teams. After three months of hard work, they created six new conceptual products with integration of artificial intelligence and design.
These products include “Mito Toy Reception Assistant, which was born to solve the problem of toy storage; Secure Can, which helps develop children's consumption and monetary concept in the era of mobile payment; “Childsel”, which uses GNN to generate child graffiti software; study efficiency assistant “Cabe”, a robot based on emotion recognition technology; “杳”, a product that allows people to quickly enter meditation; and 牵里, a weak interaction product for distributed households.
Course manager Prof. Sun Lingyun summarized the progress and breakthroughs of the course in the past four years. The theme of each year's curriculum changes with social development and technological advancement.
Prof. Sun Lingyun
On the stage of the Information Product Design product release conference, design and technology empower each other to create more possibilities. Professor Sun Lingyun also launched a promotion plan, inviting universities at home and abroad to jointly promote the mutual empowerment of design and technology.
