Friday, October 9 (11.00–12.30)
The 2nd level postgraduate MA study program of Product Design at University of Maribor enables the students to study industrial design based on the “inside-out” design approach. The method was autonomously developed over the course of the past eighteen years and proved to be exceptionally successful, but most of all it established the difference in relation to the most other technologies and design schools. The “inside-out” design method integrates scientific methods from the praxis of mechanical engineering to the greatest possible extent and introduces them gradually at different levels of the design process to the very essence and core of a device or product.
The LIO Lab (Laboratory for product design) at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Maribor is a lab-based form of organization that facilitates project work for students. At the LIO Lab, students can take on various projects, from mandatory traineeships to individual tasks in the frame of study requirements; acquiring practical working experience, new skills, individually or as team work, and upgrading in the fields of recent technologies for planning and production, which are generally still underrepresented in our environment. At the same time, students can also enter into projects, which are implemented directly for specific organizations in the economic sector.
In terms of organization, the work at the LIO Lab is carried out on two levels, namely:
1st level: LIO LAB – 3D Incubator, a prep-lab for students. In this training section, students become acquainted with the available hardware and software at the LIO Lab; they are introduced to the working process and familiarized with the working habits.
2nd level: LIO LAB – 3D generator, a form of advanced laboratory work, where students participate in the planning and implementation of projects for firms and companies. The head of the lab organizes projects, the students present different variants of execution (parts or whole), but the final project includes only the solutions approved by the client and the project manager, who carries the responsibility. At the same time, these project variants also serve as the basis for performing certain study requirements, which the student can suggest in the frame of individual study subjects. Members of the LIO Lab 3D generator also perform introductions for new members of the LIO Lab incubator, thereby learning to form working relationships and to prepare co-workers for team work, while getting to know each other and their range of skills, learning about self-organization in relation to the type of problem that is being treated etc.
(Vojko Pogačar, Head of LIO-Lab)
