In this paper, the authors developed a system for collocated workers that serves as a workload manager. The manager takes into account the task difficulty, strengths and weaknesses of the workers in the pool, local history, and how various subtasks are related to each other in order to help inform its decision. After the workload manager selects a worker, they receive clear step by step instructions for how to execute their task. Their study results were promising, showing that the system helped reduce start-up and coordination time for beginning a task.
Utilizing mobile phones is an efficient way to help the coordination process since most people in the modern era are attached to their. Having a central location for information such as the dashboard is also key because it allows users to collaborate both in the physical and virtual space. Idealistically, any system attempting to collaborate users should take advantage of both spaces for optimal results. On the other side, one weakness of the system is that it requires the steps to be static. In other words, tasks cannot be determined or concocted by the system itself. It could be extremely useful if the system could dynamically create the instructions. Additionally, their results did not show much improvement between the WeBuild group and (~1 second difference) the control group. Furthermore, hand tools and LEGOS are a reasonable study, but seeing another practical example would have been more intriguing. It is possible their selected tasks also affected or contributed to the minimal difference between the two groups in completion time.
In general, this adaptive system aids the construction process and helps to organize the workers involved. The algorithms by the researchers used can be abstracted or modified in such a way that they could also be useful in another system with a similar goal in mind. It would be interesting to see how this type of system and algorithm could be applied with collaboration in different physical spaces. This particular research is more helpful towards a construction process rather than a creative process. However, if you were able to get the system to dynamically allocate and create tasks, then an abstract idea could be used during a more creative process. In that same token, our semester projects lie somewhere in between on the construction process and creative process. There are some high-level steps we all are aware of for our projects (constructive realm). However, the micro-tasks are still fluid and fluctuating (creative realm). The system helps workers construct in real time, and the steps for our projects most likely cannot be completed fast enough to make the system useful. Overall, the system appears useful given the right context, and their algorithm (perhaps with modifications) has the potential have utility with other systems.