Our lab is an interdisciplinary group open to all majors through a Capstone Design structure. Currently, students from industrial design, computing, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and material science, work together to imagine novel transportation design concepts. We are specifically investigating human machine interfaces (HMI): Imagining new vehicle experiences, creating and prototyping potential solutions, and testing the efficacy of our designs using road simulation software, heads-up displays, advanced eye-tracking systems, and XR (augmented and virtual) reality. Students who join our lab can expect design work involving multi-disciplinary collaboration, progressing through a learning-by-doing methodology, from basic to advanced skills.

The design for the lab's first driving simulator took six months to complete, using an iterative build/test/refine approach. Professor Wayne Li and graduate industrial design student Chris Bartlett worked on the concept during the summer of 2015.

After scouring the scrap yards for a suitably undamaged buck, they disassembled, sectioned, and reassembled the car against a custom fabricated metal armature. This allows students in the lab to quickly exchange parts in and out of the structure.

The interior also functions as a driving simulator, able to run computer programs such as NADS Mini-Sim (road simulation software) or Project CARS (video racing game). The metal armature, driving workstation, and projection systems were built between October and December of 2015. Student projects began working with the buck in January 2016.