This open access book describes Smittestopp, the first Norwegian system for digital contact tracing of Covid-19 infections, which was developed in March and early April 2020. The system was deployed after five weeks of development and was active for a little more than two months, when a drop in infection levels in Norway and privacy concerns led to shutting it down. The intention of this book i…
This introduction to the book provides a conceptual and historical overview of learning engineering. Although its formal definition is still evolving, learning engineering aims to optimize specific learning solutions--from the learning sciences to human-centered design methodologies to data-informed decision-making--in order to understand under what conditions and with what learners a current d…
Winner of the 2017 Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative Book Prize Software developers work rhetorically to make meaning through the code they write. In some ways, writing code is like any other form of communication; in others, it proves to be new, exciting, and unique. In Rhetorical Code Studies, Kevin Brock explores how software code serves as meaningful communication through which softw…
Aesthetic Programming explores the technical as well as cultural imaginaries of programming from its insides. It follows the principle that the growing importance of software requires a new kind of cultural thinking — and curriculum — that can account for, and with which to better understand the politics and aesthetics of algorithmic procedures, data processing and abstraction. It takes a p…
This open access book offers a timely snapshot of Augmented Reality (AR) technology, with an emphasis on its application within the mechanical and manufacturing engineering domains, for both educational and industrial purposes. Reporting on the experience of the authors, the book introduces readers to the principles of product design, with an emphasis on modern strategies and approaches for use…
Robots are increasingly becoming prevalent in our daily lives within our living or working spaces. We hope that robots will take up tedious, mundane or dirty chores and make our lives more comfortable, easy and enjoyable by providing companionship and care. However, robots may pose a threat to human privacy, safety and autonomy; therefore, it is necessary to have constant control over the devel…
Typically, social robots are supposed to empathize with humans, understand human emotions, and anticipate human needs. With this chapter, the authors turn the table: What can humans learn through empathizing with technology? How might the design of robots change if developers adopted the perspective of a robot, walking in its shoes to perceive and understand the world from its point of view thr…
What kind of robots do we want to live with in the future? Which ones do we not want? How will robots affect our everyday lives? What will be the consequences of our coexistence with them? Roboticists tend to focus on the product design of the robot, its exact configuration, and its technical implementation; rarely is any thought given to the far-reaching social consequences that might arise wh…
Robots are often designed to increase efficiency. They are typically positioned in a particular field of application to replace humans, making someone’s work obsolete. But robots are able to complement the humans they work with through collaboration and the incorporation of the psychological strengths that robots can have in social situations. This chapter presents a co-design method based on…
Social robots are on the brink of entering our lives. However, little knowledge is available about how best to design them. This introductory chapter discusses the real-life social robots of the present as well as of possible futures—without, of course, forgetting the history of robots and their origins in fiction. From a design perspective, robots are promising and challenging. They suggest …