The Applied Study of Reverse Engineering: Learning Through Games Based on Role-Play

Abstract

Learning through Games is a mature teaching method, which has many applications in the field of e-learning through gamification, Intercultural learning or Promoting global empathy and interest. This study takes role-play as the main teaching idea and aims to understand the relationship between product and materials technology, structure design and appearance design from multiple perspectives by substituting students into different roles (designer, engineer and design director) in product engineering process. This case work is a part of product design course of China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). It takes reverse engineering as the medium and teaches sophomores. In the process of dismantling and reconstructing products, the team members had a clear division of labor according to the requirements in advance, including project manager, engineer, designer and recorder. They worked closely with each other to interpret the pre-set problems of the course from different perspectives, so as to solve various problems encountered in reverse engineering. Finally, through the form of questionnaire, the teaching method of Learning through games based on role play has been verified by the form of evaluation questionnaire. The results show that most students have reached the cognitive level of reverse engineering. We see this period of work as practical study, aiming to verify the possibility of using role-play to intervene in product design courses. In the second stage of the study, we will systematically deepen role-play characters, environmental scenes and design props.