Abstract
My technical project and STS research project are related through the idea of engineering design to improve user control. In the case of the technical project, this idea was addressed through physical knobs on the rotary inverted pendulum (RIP) that can be used in real-time to adjust the control system of the device. This feature will be useful in educational settings where students can see concepts relating to proportional, integral, and derivative (PID) control play out using a physical device. In the case of the STS research project, this idea was addressed through examination of moral responsibility in the 1991 Dhahran Patriot missile failure, in which the soldier operators were not given full control over the system.
My technical project aims to create a mechatronic device known as a RIP that can be used for educational purposes in control systems courses. The goal of a RIP is to balance a freely-rotating pendulum using PID control, which is a software system that can be used to maintain the pendulum’s stability. My group’s RIP is novel in that it has transparent walling where users can see the interior electronics and mechanical structure that comprise the system, and we also added physical knobs on the side of the device that can be used to manipulate the RIP’s control system. Students using the RIP will be able to leverage this design to see concepts relating to PID control play out in real-time.
My STS research project examines the 1991 Dhahran Patriot missile failure, in which a U.S. Army barracks in Dhahran was struck by an Iraqi missile, killing 28 U.S. soldiers and injuring 98 others. The barracks were defended by a Patriot missile battery that failed to detect and intercept the incoming missile. The paper explores the moral responsibility of the involved parties using actor network theory and conditions for moral responsibility. My claim is one, that the soldier operators were not morally responsible for the failure because of their lack of full control over the system, and two, that a portion of moral responsibility lies with the Patriot missile design engineers because of their deficient design consideration to allow for that full control.
Working on both projects in tandem was helpful in the design considerations for the technical project and the socio-technical analysis in the research project. On the technical front, I knew that with a system as complex as the RIP, it is helpful to have ways in which its users can have full control over the system to more actively engage and learn from it, whereas with the Patriot, users were not afforded that capability. On the sociotechnical front, I knew the potential downsides and hazards an out-of-control RIP could pose, so it was easier to make that user-designer connection in my analysis of a system like the Patriot with much greater consequences. In summary, both projects worked in synergy, adding value to each other in a way that allowed me to delve deeper and ultimately deliver a better result.
