SMA-Tech epiphanies: an educational activity to design for technological innovation with Shape Memory Alloys

Technological epiphanies constitute an innovation strategy in which design intersects with a radical technological innovation. To create a technological epiphany two aspects are needed: a new technology and the attribution of a new meaning. In the proposed educational activity, the technology selected for innovative product design development have been Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs). SMAs are stimuliresponsive materials: they use heat or energy as an input to change their shape. SMAs show different qualities as actuators, such as carrying out a significant action; being temperature sensors, operating silently, and being light and hidden. For these reasons, they can establish new user-product relationships, generate surprise and amazement, and enable more sustainable, light, silent, and intelligent systems. The educational activity has been structured following the alternation of a divergent and convergent phases of ideation explained in detail in the following full text. The active participation of a leader company of SMAs technology had a double value: on one hand, the students got in touch with a complex technological reality, while on the other one the company was able to experiment innovation strategies based on technological epiphanies to reach B2C market. This paper presents also an experiment of multidisciplinary teaching collaboration: one of the two teaching units has a strong technical-scientific expertise on functional materials, while the other on Strategic Design and Design Management for technological innovation.