Perceptions of Prototypes: Pilot Study Comparing Students and Professionals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlye Lauff ◽  
Daria Kotys-Schwartz ◽  
Mark E. Rentschler
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Fundamental Part ◽  
Engineering Work ◽  
Recommendations For Practice ◽  
Physical Elements

Just as design is a fundamental part of engineering work, prototyping is an essential part of the design process. For many engineering design courses, students must develop a final prototype as part of the course requirements. And in industry, engineers build multiple prototypes when creating a product for market. Although prototyping is core to design education, there is a lack of research on understanding the perceptions and usage of prototypes from both students and professionals. Without understanding students’ perceptions of prototypes, we cannot adequately train them. Likewise, without knowing how professionals use prototypes, we cannot translate these practices back to design education. This paper reports on the pilot study comparing the perceptions of prototypes between mechanical engineering students and professional engineers. The findings indicate that the interpretation of the term “prototype” varies between students and professionals. Specifically, these mechanical engineering students have a more narrow perception and identify prototypes as only having a few key elements, namely for building and testing functionality and feasibility of physical elements in a product. Comparatively, professionals have a broad perception of prototypes. They identify a wider range of attributes, including prototypes as a communication tool, an aid in making decisions, and a way to learn about unknowns throughout the design process. Many instructors in design education are cognizant of the importance of prototyping. However, we believe that students require explicit instruction about key concepts. It is not enough to just tell students to “prototype.” As design educators, we must be aware of the various roles of prototypes, and teach these concepts to students. We provide some immediate recommendations for practice, including a list of ten principles of prototypes to create similar mental models between students.

A Pillar of Mechanical Engineering Design Education in Australia: 25 Years of the Warman Design and Build Competition

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warren F. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Student Assessment ◽  
National Committee ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Institutional Learning ◽  
History Of

The “Warman Design and Build Competition”, running across Australasian Universities, is now in its 26th year in 2013. Presented in this paper is a brief history of the competition, documenting the objectives, yearly scenarios, key contributors and champion Universities since its beginning in 1988. Assuming the competition has reached the majority of mechanical and related discipline engineering students in that time, it is fair to say that this competition, as a vehicle of the National Committee on Engineering Design, has served to shape Australasian engineering education in an enduring way. The philosophy of the Warman Design and Build Competition and some of the challenges of running it are described in this perspective by its coordinator since 2003. In particular, the need is for the competition to work effectively across a wide range of student group ability. Not every group engaging with the competition will be competitive nationally, yet all should learn positively from the experience. Reported also in this paper is the collective feedback from the campus organizers in respect to their use of the competition as an educational experience in their classrooms. Each University participating uses the competition differently with respect to student assessment and the support students receive. However, all academic campus organizer responses suggest that the competition supports their own and their institutional learning objectives very well. While the project scenarios have varied widely over the years, the intent to challenge 2nd year university (predominantly mechanical) engineering students with an open-ended statement of requirements in a practical and experiential exercise has been a constant. Students are faced with understanding their opportunity and their client’s value system as expressed in a scoring algorithm. They are required to conceive, construct and demonstrate their device with limited prior knowledge and experience, and the learning outcomes clearly impact their appreciation for teamwork, leadership and product realization.

A Pilot Study of Engineering Design-Decision Methods in Practice

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Nichols ◽  
Andrew Olewnik
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Decision Method ◽  
Decision Methods ◽  
Future Work

Numerous engineering design-decision methods have been developed to assist groups of engineers in making choices within a design problem. However, while there are a variety of methods to choose from, there is no empirical data that exhibits which decision-method is best for specific phases of the design process, or that designers are willing to adopt particular decision methods. Due to this lack of empirical data, industry may not use certain engineering design methods since they do not have the resources or time to investigate which method would work best for them. This work presents the development of a framework to examine various engineering design-decision methods in practice. The framework is used in a pilot study with undergraduate engineering students which compares usage of Pugh’s Controlled Convergence (PuCC) and the Group Hypothetical Equivalent and Inequivalent Method (G-HEIM) to the results of an “informal” method (a group decision that is made without a formalized decision method). Results of the pilot study include documenting the emergence of decision “traps” within each group, assessing student perceptions about using formalized design-decision methods through interviews and surveys (critical to understanding potential barriers to adoption of formal methods), and insight into where formal decision methods are most appropriate within a design process. Finally, a number of changes and additions to the framework and study protocol are identified for future work focused on repeating the study with more participants and potentially in industrial settings.

Improving students’ freehand sketching skills in mechanical engineering curriculum

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacek Uziak ◽  
Ning Fang
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Engineering Curriculum ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Modern Engineering ◽  
Computer Aided

Freehand sketching is a fundamental skill in mechanical engineering and many other engineering disciplines. It not only serves as a communication tool among engineers, but plays a critical role in engineering design and problem solving. However, as computer-aided drafting has replaced traditional drawing classes nowadays, the training of students’ freehand sketching skills has been almost completely eliminated in modern engineering curricula. This paper describes the attributes of freehand sketching and its roles in several essential aspects of engineering; in particular, in its roles in problem solving, of which current literature has ignored. Representative examples are provided to show students’ freehand sketching skills in problem solving in a foundational undergraduate mechanical engineering course. Pedagogical suggestions are made on how to teach freehand sketching to engineering students.

Some Remarks on the Teaching of Polymer Processing to Mechanical Engineering Students

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-164
Author(s):  
Fernando G. Torres
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Teaching Style ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Polymer Processing ◽  
Graduate Course ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Teaching Aids ◽  
Fundamental Part ◽  
Proper Balance

Polymer processing is a fundamental part of modern science and technology, but it is not a high profile component in a mechanical engineering course. This paper proposes a course for teaching polymer processing to mechanical engineering students. The aim has been to find the proper balance between a purely theoretical and a design-oriented approach. The course outline is proposed and some remarks on the teaching style and the available teaching aids are given. These include the use of analogies and semi-finished products in order to identify and visualize the different processing stages. Finally, some more advanced topics have been proposed which can be delivered as part of a graduate course. The global purpose of the whole programme is to introduce the teaching of polymer processing operations in a mechanical engineering course, where previous experience in the field is not available.

Exploring the Effect of Design Education on the Design Cognition of Mechanical Engineering Students

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher B. Williams ◽  
John Gero ◽  
Yoon Lee ◽  
Marie Paretti
Keyword(s):  
Design Education ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Protocol Analysis ◽  
Design Cognition ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Protocol Study ◽  
The Impact

In this paper, the authors report on progress of a longitudinal study on the impact of design education on students’ design thinking and practice. Using innovations in cognitive science and new methods of protocol analysis, the authors are working with engineering students to characterize their design cognition as they progress through engineering curricula. In this paper, the results from a protocol study of sophomore Mechanical Engineering students are presented. Specifically, data gathered from two experimental sessions (conducted before and after the students’ introductory design course) are analyzed to identify changes in design thinking cognition. Design cognition is determined using protocol analysis with the coding of the protocols based on a general design ontology, namely, the Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) as a principled coding scheme (as opposed to an ad hoc one). Preliminary results indicate that statistically significant changes in students’ design cognition occur over the course of their sophomore year. The change manifests itself in an increase in focus on the purposes of designs being produced, which is often a precursor to the production a higher quality designs, and an increase in the design processes associated with the introduction of purposes of designs.

Teaching Sustainable Engineering Throughout the Mechanical Engineering Curriculum

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Hallinan ◽  
Kelly Kissock ◽  
Margaret Pinnell
Keyword(s):  
Design Education ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Natural World ◽  
System Level ◽  
Engineering Curriculum ◽  
Biological Degradation ◽  
Sustainable Engineering

The natural world has long been impacted by technological society; however, in recent years environmental impacts and constraints are increasingly on the global, rather than local or regional, scale. Moreover, the interconnectivity of biological systems with energy and material flows is increasingly evident. Today, it is well understood that climate change, energy constraints and biological degradation are largely a consequence of technological production and energy use. In this context, one would expect engineering education to have evolved to prepare engineers to be capable of addressing these issues. Rather, excluding the resurgence in design education, we see a curriculum that remains largely unchanged. In this context, we propose an integrated mechanical engineering curriculum that emphasizes sustainable engineering and whole-system design. The curriculum provides mechanical engineering students with a deeper understanding of the broader impact of the products and processes they design, the tools to assess that impact, and the system level thinking to design technologies for a sustainable future.

Are you feeling me? An exploration of empathy development in engineering design education

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-57
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Christopher McComb ◽  
Jessica Menold ◽  
Jackie Huff ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Empathy Development ◽  
Trait Empathy ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Having empathy in the design process can help engineers relate to the end user by identifying what and why certain experiences are meaningful. While there have been efforts to identify the factors that impact empathic tendencies in engineering, there has been limited evidence on how a students' trait empathy or empathic self-efficacy develops over a design project or what factors impact this development. The current study was developed to explore the development of students' trait empathy and empathic self-efficacy development and identify the underlying impact of the design project's context and course instructor through a study with 103 engineering students. Students' trait empathy and empathic self-efficacy were measured across each of the four design stages (problem formulation, concept generation, concept selection, and final conceptual design) during an 8-week project. The results highlight that students' trait empathy and empathic self-efficacy did not increase across design stages and the context of the design problem did not impact students' empathy development. Meanwhile, the course instructor negatively impacted students' empathic self-efficacy in one of the three course sections studied, and two of the three interviewed course instructors reduced the role of empathy in the concept generation and selection stages of the design process. These insights call for future research that could empirically assess the impact of trait empathy and empathic self-efficacy in driving design outcomes in the later design stages, which could increase engineering educators' awareness of the role of empathy in the engineering classroom.

Design Education Across Disciplines: Opportunities for Curriculum Advancement

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony A. Nix ◽  
Mark T. Lemke ◽  
Ryan M. Arlitt ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Apparel Design ◽  
Design Engineers ◽  
Math And Science ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
Science Classes

Design education is a large field. It is not just limited to engineering design but can also include apparel design, industrial design, graphic design, architecture, and many others. These disciplines instruct students to follow a similar design process to what is generally taught in engineering design. However, these other disciplines contain a variety of instructional techniques, class structures, and class types that are not regularly included in engineering design. While design engineers tend to get a background rich in math and science, instructing students in design can be difficult. Many of these math and science classes focus on one approach and one right answer. However, in design the answers tend to fall on a spectrum from unsatisfactory to varying levels of satisfactory to ideal and innovative solutions, all of which can be uncovered using widely varying design methods. Despite the rigidness of the mechanical engineering curriculum there are areas where the implementation of techniques used in the other design disciplines could be advantageous to help engineering design students improve students design skills, design process knowledge, and softer skills such as team communication. The research done in this paper examines how the curricula of design disciplines could influence the coursework of students focusing on the design area of mechanical engineering.

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