Humber’s Bachelor of Industrial Design Students Create Human Machine Interface Designs for Canada’s First Zero Emissions Concept Vehicle
By Janice Saji
In today’s increasingly competitive employment market, “practical experience” has become a requirement for most entry-level jobs. Although quite paradoxical, this is now becoming the norm.
To keep up with this demand and provide students with an edge as they enter the workforce, Humber’s faculty members are finding new ways to integrate industry experience into their curriculum.
Case in point—Humber’s Bachelor of Industrial Design program.
Students in the 2022 graduating class of Humber’s Bachelor of Industrial Design program were given an opportunity to create Human Machine Interface (HMI) designs that were integrated into ARROW, Canada’s First Zero Emissions Concept Vehicle. These designs simulated the dashboard experience for the consumer, creating a unique in-car experience for driver and passenger engagement.
Humber students’ designs were integrated with designs created by other vendor teams to create interactive simulations on the dashboard to enhance the driver and passenger experience.
The design, integrated into the ARROW concept vehicle, was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Jan. 5, 2023.
This student project was brought about as part of the collaborative course run by George Paravantes, professor in Humber’s Faculty of Media & Creative Arts (FMCA), and Dennis L. Kappen, PhD, professor in the Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology (FAST), now under the FMCA.
Dennis recalls being approached to be a part of this project just one week before they were set to begin their course.
The Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association (APMA) of Canada was working on the ARROW electric vehicle and had reached the phase where they were ready to develop the human-machine interface for the car. To work on this, they wanted to involve post-secondary students.
Colin Singh Dhillon, the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at APMA, approached Dennis and George to be a part of this due to his previous collaborations with Humber’s Industrial Design program.
While online learning and limited time were potential challenges, the professors decided to seize the opportunity and incorporate the project into their curriculum.
“We thought it would be a really good creative project for the students to incorporate their learnings from our program into the ARROW vehicle. So, we figured out the logistics of it and accepted it,” George notes.
“We knew that this was a prestigious project that we had to have our hands on. And we knew that our students could work on it successfully,” Dennis says.
ARROW-Humber Industrial Design Competition 2022
The ARROW-Humber Industrial Design Competition in 2022 allowed fourth-year Industrial Design and Interaction Design students from the Bachelor of Industrial Design program to create potential HMI designs for project ARROW.
Project ARROW is Canada’s first original, full-build, zero-emission concept vehicle.
The students were divided into five teams and created the designs in seven weeks. The designs were judged by industry experts from the UK, Sweden, USA and Canada who were present in the virtual classroom for weekly review of student presentations and guidance.
The winning team’s designs were later integrated into the ARROW concept vehicle showcased at the CES.
The winning team consisted of Patrick Hui, Mark Connolly, Kyeong Hoon Kim and Sam Khan.
Mark notes that while his overall experience working on the project was quite positive, it had its challenges. “ARROW was by far the most intensive and technical project I, personally, have ever worked on. For the project, we picked up a completely new Adobe software and by the end of the project we were making advanced animations. Also, avoiding low-hanging fruit for our concepts was a whole other battle that really forced us as a team to dig deep within our research.”
While the pandemic and virtual classes were a huge challenge, he reflects that the team worked well together to help carry each other through to the finish line.
For Sam, the group’s collective experience taught him how persistence, determination and hard work can ultimately turn the tides of how a project can turn up in the end.
“I remember during our first couple weeks of presentations and feedback sessions, our direction as a group and overall collection of concepts were not aligned at all with what they were looking for. I recall there was a week or two in the middle of the project where you could feel the initial excitement we had entering into the project quickly dying down, and it felt as though we were desperate to come up with anything just to satisfy the project requirements,” he says.
“However, as a group, we managed to push through the rough creative and mental block that we were all experiencing, kept a positive mindset and worked overtime to ensure we explored a vast number of areas and directions that eventually led to our eureka moment. Had we given up too early, the outcome of the project wouldn’t have turned out the way it did in the end, and a lot of the knowledge and skills we developed would have been lost along with it,” Sam notes.
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An Impactful Learning Experience
The students recall the competition to be an intensive, yet highly impactful learning experience.
For Sam, the late nights spent working as a group through video calls, at times even until the morning before a presentation, are fond memories in hindsight. “Don’t get me wrong, it definitely wasn’t fun to go through all of that hardship in the moment, especially since we also had our individual thesis projects to worry about at the same time, but I think it absolutely had to happen that way in order for it to be as successful of a project as it was for us.”
He credits the group’s success to their collective drive and varied strengths.
Speaking about their experiences, the students said:
“Project Arrow is probably my best portfolio piece to show to a prospective employer. The fact that we worked with a real company and won shows my group’s ability to produce work at a high industry standard with refined graphics, sound branding, and unique features conveyed in an interesting way. Our design was showcased at CES 2023, which was a huge talking point when I had job interviews. My current role is similar to the work I did on ARROW, which is certainly no coincidence!”
— Mark Connolly, graduate of Humber’s Industrial Design program (Class of 2022)
“Before enrolling in this program, I knew very little about what product design consisted of and even less about the existence of interaction design. This project helped me identify my interests and passions within the field and reinforced the direction I would like to eventually pursue in my career as I continue to evolve my skills and develop myself in this field as an industrial designer.”
— Sam Khan, graduate of Humber’s Industrial Design program (Class of 2022)
“Despite facing challenges with tight deadlines (sometimes we worked together for 20 hours in a row), we were proud of the end result we achieved. The project was focused on UI/UX designing and user experience design, areas we were less familiar with. So, our collaboration with students from the interaction design course helped us learn certain programs to deliver the quality results that we wanted to achieve. In the end, we not only delivered visually appealing UX/UI designs but also presented brilliant user experience ideas that greatly impressed our sponsors.”
— KyeongHoon Kim, graduate of Humber’s Industrial Design program (Class of 2022)
For KyeongHoon Kim, this project opened another door to further his collaboration with APMA. After graduating, he was given the opportunity to work as a freelance graphic render to render still images and animations for the ARROW project. His work has since been showcased at various car shows.
Building on the Momentum
The professors are building on this momentum as they continue to work with a new cohort of students.
George says this year’s project is focused on innovation using space technology. The scope is to review space technology and trickle it down to implement its use on Earth.
The students have been divided into 12 teams and apply their course learnings to provide weekly deliverables.
Dennis and George shared that they are excited to see the end product created by each team and that they are looking forward to the varying uses of these designs.
We acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Nous remercions le Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada (CRSNG) de son soutien.
