Cybertronics: interactive simulation game for design and manufacturing education

TLDR

Cybertronics is an interactive simulation game that places users in a fictional electronics manufacturing company, allowing them to assume roles of product designer, manufacturing engineer, marketing expert, and product manager while exploring the design and manufacturing of circuit‑board assemblies for commercial and military electronics. The game is built on a modular Multimedia Director architecture, presenting users with interactive multimedia modules—Electronics Handbook, Manufacturing Handbook, Functional Design, Parts Ordering, Manufacturing Layout and Planning, Manufacturing Control, and Market and Sales—that guide them through product‑development decisions and trade‑offs among performance, cost, quality, and time‑to‑market. Cybertronics has been adopted in undergraduate and graduate engineering and management courses at Rensselaer and in corporate training, and formal classroom evaluations demonstrate that it effectively teaches manufacturing principles and motivates students to consider the broader context of engineering and management decisions.

Abstract

In the Cybertronics interactive simulation game, we create a fictional enterprise, the Cybertronics Corporation, in which the user assumes the role of product designer, manufacturing engineer, marketing expert, and product manager. In working through the decisions required in product development, the user addresses the tradeoff among product performance, cost, quality, and time-to-market. The Cybertronics simulation game has been developed in a modular architecture using Multimedia Director as the development environment. The major components include: Electronics Handbook, Manufacturing Handbook, Functional Design, Parts Ordering, Manufacturing Layout and Planning, Manufacturing Control, and Market and Sales. Each section is an enhanced multimedia module with access to video (e.g. manufacturing operations in a factory) and animation (e.g. depiction of manufacturing process principles). The focus of Cybertronics is on electronics manufacturing and the processes involved in the design and manufacturing of circuit-board assemblies for commercial and military electronics products. Cybertronics has been used in both undergraduate and graduate courses in engineering and management at Rensselaer, and also in corporate training sessions. A formal evaluation process of Cybertronics in the classroom has shown that the experience is effective in presenting the principles of manufacturing activities, and has been especially successful in motivating students to understand the larger context of their engineering and management decisions.