DEMO
Dejan Trencevski, Aric Rindfleisch, Jina Kang, Vishal Sachdev
This research study explores the affordances of augmented reality technologies (AR) to facilitate studentsʼ product design processes in business courses. We analyze the affordances of AR in the context of product design activities in classrooms. The courses are held in a Makerspace lab at a university campus, and it requires students to conceptualize, design, prototype, manufacture, and market new products by using 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software and 3D printing and scanning hardware. Our study illuminates that although CAD allows students to visualize and manipulate digitally manufactured 3D objects on a 2D computer monitor surface, it does not allow them to visualize and manipulate those 3D objects in 3D space. However, AR does afford visualization and manipulation of digitally manufactured 3D objects in 3D space which is why we investigated the effects of 3D modeling with AR as the facilitator for product design. Specifically, our study investigated how do interactions with 3D models in AR impact product design processes for students. We expect that our study will inform educators and business practitioners about the potential pedagogical application of AR for product design.