A Web-Based Online Collaboration Tool for Formulating Senior Design Projects

Author(s):  
Sainath Varikuti ◽  
Jitesh H. Panchal ◽  
John M. Starkey

A well formed senior design project is known to have significant benefits in terms of project outcome, student motivation, team cohesiveness, engagement, and student learning. Defining a good problem statement, forming a team of compatible and appropriately skilled students, and selecting an appropriate faculty mentor are critical aspects of project formation. Therefore, students in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University are encouraged to suggest project ideas, form teams, and have them approved by the course coordinator before the semester starts. While there is significant literature on senior design projects, most of the existing work is focused on activities after the problem is defined and the teams are formed. There is a lack of mechanisms and tools to guide the project formation phase in senior design projects, which makes it challenging for students and faculty to collaboratively develop and refine project ideas and to establish appropriate teams. To address this challenge, we have implemented an online collaboration tool to share, discuss and obtain feedback on project ideas, and to facilitate collaboration among students and faculty prior to the start of the semester. Through an online survey and questionnaire to students, we are exploring the impact of the collaboration tool on the senior design project formation process. In this paper we present the design of the tool and the results from our ongoing study in the senior design class at Purdue Mechanical Engineering.

Author(s):  
James Righter ◽  
Andy Blanton ◽  
Hallie Stidham ◽  
Doug Chickarello ◽  
Joshua D. Summers

This paper describes exploratory research regarding leadership and communication within undergraduate engineering design teams. The case study was performed on student design projects of one and two semester duration to begin to assess the impact of project length on leadership and communication within the design teams. Data was collected using a survey that was given to the participants in three capstone design projects in Clemson University’s senior design course. The survey was administered within one month of course and project completion. While there were differences in the communication and leadership patterns between the teams, there were other possible influences beyond the project length such as team size and organization, organizational and geographic distribution, and the nature of the product. As a result, further research is proposed to study leadership and communication structures within undergraduate teams and multi-team systems (MTS).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo A. Salustri ◽  
W. Patrick Neumann

The design experience of 3rd year undergraduates in Mechanical Engineering at Ryerson University, and the assessment of student design work, was found to be disjointed and highly variable across the program. To attempt to address this, the authors are constructing courseware to help instructors of non-design engineering courses embed rich and consistent design projects into their courses. A “lightweight” Fast-Design process was developed. Course-specific design project examples of the process are being developed for five 3rd year courses using this design process. Current versions of all courseware are freely available. This paper details the nature of the courseware and how it was designed, developed,and deployed for the project. To date, one case has been deployed, two developed, and two more are under development. While results are so far only anecdotal, there is reason to believe that our approach can noticeably improve the design experience of students in non-design engineering courses.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo A. Salustri ◽  
W. Patrick Neumann

The design experience of 3rd year undergraduates in Mechanical Engineering at Ryerson University, and the assessment of student design work, was found to be disjointed and highly variable across the program. To attempt to address this, the authors are constructing courseware to help instructors of non-design engineering courses embed rich and consistent design projects into their courses. A “lightweight” Fast-Design process was developed. Course - specific design project examples of the process are being developed for five 3rd year courses using this design process. Current versions of all courseware are freely available. This paper details the nature of the courseware and how it was designed, developed, and deployed for the project. To date, one case has been deployed, two developed, and two more are under development. While results are so far only anecdotal, there is reason to believe that our approach can noticeably improve the design experience of students in non-design engineering courses.


Author(s):  
David Veisz ◽  
Essam Z. Namouz ◽  
Shraddha Joshi ◽  
Joshua D Summers

AbstractThis paper presents a preliminary comparison between the role of computer-aided design (CAD) and sketching in engineering through a case study of a senior design project and interviews with industry and academia. The design team consisted of four senior level mechanical engineering students each with less than 1 year of professional experience are observed while completing an industry sponsored mechanical engineering capstone design project across a 17 week semester. Factors investigated include what CAD tools are used, when in the design process they are implemented, the justification for their use from the students' perspectives, the actual knowledge gained from their use, the impact on the final designed artifact, and the contributions of any sketches generated. At each design step, comparisons are made between CAD and sketching. The students implemented CAD tools at the onset of the project, generally failing to realize gains in design efficiency or effectiveness in the early conceptual phases of the design process. As the design became more concrete, the team was able to recognize clear gains in both efficiency and effectiveness through the use of computer assisted design programs. This study is augmented by interviews with novice and experienced industry users and academic instructors to align the trends observed in the case study with industry practice and educational emphasis. A disconnect in the perceived capability of CAD tools was found between novice and experienced user groups. Opinions on the importance of sketching skills differed between novice educators and novice industry professionals, suggesting that there is a change of opinion as to the importance of sketching formed when recent graduates transition from academia to industry. The results suggest that there is a need to emphasize the importance of sketching and a deeper understanding as to the true utility of CAD tools at each stage of the design process.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vukica Jovanovic ◽  
Jennifer Michaeli ◽  
Otilia Popescu ◽  
Moustafa Moustafa ◽  
Mileta Tomovic ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Ruba Abu Hasna

Art exhibitions promote learning by shaping knowledge through communication media. Saudi Arabia 2030 vision considers art and design and its development. This study aims to investigate the learning experience and practices in art exhibition visits of graphic design students in Jeddah International College. Moreover, the study examines the impact of visiting art exhibitions on the development of graphic design projects with adequate guidance during the students' visits to art exhibitions. Jeddah International graphic design students participated in the data collection using an online survey. The results revealed that visiting art exhibitions have a significant impact on the development of graphic design projects. However, graphic design student’s practice inappropriate processes to work independently during these visits. Thus, the study proposes a set of guidelines for graphic design students to enhance students' learning during art exhibitions visits.


1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Samir Hefzy ◽  
Gregory Nemunaitis ◽  
Nagi Naganathan ◽  
Christine Smallman

Abstract This paper describes the community involvement and the impact that the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (MIME) at the University of Toledo (UT) has accomplished during the past six years with its senior students in developing custom devices for physically disabled individuals within the Toledo community. These projects assist disabled individuals to better enjoy life and realize their maximum potential. These projects significantly enhance the education of student engineers through the experience of designing and building devices to meet a real need with feedback on how well the device satisfies that need.


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Boronkay ◽  
Janak Dave

Abstract Every student in the Mechanical Engineering Technology Department must complete a Senior Capstone Design Project course sequence as a requirement for the partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology degree. Mechanical Engineering Technology students at the University of Cincinnati must design, build, and test their product for the satisfactory completion of the Senior Design Project course sequence. At many institutions the capstone projects do not include the build and test components. This paper gives a short description of the Senior Design course sequence, the list of pre-requisite design courses, the design process used by the students to complete their projects. It addresses issues, such as, team versus individual projects, industrial versus personal projects, etc. It also describes typical projects, two of which are being used in industry with minor modifications.


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