Virtually Hosted Hackathons for Design Research: Lessons Learned from the International Design Engineering Annual (IDEA) Challenge 2022
Year: 2023
Editor: Kevin Otto, Boris Eisenbart, Claudia Eckert, Benoit Eynard, Dieter Krause, Josef Oehmen, Nad
Author: Ege, Daniel Nygaard (1); Goudswaard, Mark (2); Nesheim, Ole (1); Eikevåg, Sindre W (1); Bjelland, Øystein (1); Christensen, Kim A (1); Ballantyne, Robert (2); Su, Shuo (2); Cox, Chris (2); Timperley, Louis (2); Aeddula, Omsri (3); Machchhar, Raj Jiten (3); Ruvald, Ryan (3); Li, Jie (4); Figueiredo, Sara (4); Deo, Saurabh (4); Horvat, Nikola (5); Čeh, Ivan (5); Šklebar, Jelena (5); Miler, Daniel (5); Gopsill, James (2); Hicks, Ben (2); Steinert, Martin (1)
Series: ICED
Institution: 1: Norwegian University of Science and Technology;
2: University of Bristol;
3: Blekinge Institute of Technology;
4: Aalto University;
5: University of Zagreb
Section: Design Methods
Page(s): 3811-3820
DOI number: https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2023.382
ISBN: -
ISSN: -
Abstract
The International Design Engineering Annual (IDEA) Challenge is a virtually hosted hackathon for Engineering Design researchers with aims of: i) generating open access datasets; ii) fostering community between researchers; and, iii) applying great design minds to develop solutions to real design problems. This paper presents the 2022 IDEA challenge and elements of the captured dataset with the aim of providing insights into prototyping behaviours at virtually hosted hackathons, comparing it with the 2021 challenge dataset and providing reflections and learnings from two years of running the challenge. The dataset is shown to provide valuable insights into how designers spend their time at hackathon events and how, why and when prototypes are used during their design processes. The dataset also corroborates the findings from the 2021 dataset, demonstrating the complementarity of physical and sketch prototypes. With this paper, we also invite the wider community to contribute to the IDEA Challenge in future years, either as participants or in using the platform to run their own design studies.
Keywords: Prototyping, Hackathon, Design methods, Design practice, Design engineering