---
title: "Computer-Aided Creative Mechanism Design"
authors:
  - "Boi Faltings"
  - "Kun Sun"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1993/201"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1993/0201.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1993
pages: "1451-1458"
track: "Qualitative Reasoning and Naive Physics"
keywords:
---

# Computer-Aided Creative Mechanism Design

Boi Faltings, Kun Sun

*Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 1451-1458.

## Abstract

A popular saying claims that "innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." In this paper, we present techniques for automating most of the perspiration involved in creative design. We assume that creative design consists of three steps: di6covery of a new technique, u.nderdanding it, and generalizing it to useful applications. Our program uses first principles to automate the understanding and generalization phases which involve most of the perspiration, and extends its knowledge accordingly so that it can construct practical designs based on the new technique. The technique could be used to create new devices automatically, but in practice user interaction is necessary to control the search. We present a system which implements the method in the domain of elementary mechanisms, also called kinematic pair6. Its main novelties are a formalism for modeling qualitative mechanical function, and a technique similar to explanation-based learning which generalizes a qualitative analysis of a novel device to extend domain knowledge. The results are generalizable to other domains with similar characteristics.