scholarly journals TEACHING ENGINEERING DESIGN AND COMMUNICATION IN FIRST YEAR USING RUBE GOLDBERG PROJECTS

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David DeMontigny ◽  
Heidi Smithson ◽  
Connor Wright
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
First Year ◽  
Effective Mechanism ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
The University

First year engineering classes tend to be very large and impersonal, which can make it difficult for instructors to engage the students. Since the first year of courses is critical in setting students up for success in engineering, being able to inspire them and give them some hands on experience during their introduction to engineering design plays a significant role in bolstering their confidence and interest as they enter more demanding and technical upper-level courses. With an aim toward achieving this inspiration and engagement, the first year engineering design and communication class at the University of Regina included the production of Rube Goldberg machines as the term project. This proved to be a very effective mechanism for teaching students how to work on a design project from start to finish. The students had fun and stretched their imaginations. As a result, the overall feedback from students was very positive, but areas for improvement have been identified.

scholarly journals FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN – GUELPH’S TEDDY BEAR WHEEL CHAIR EXPERIENCE

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warren Stiver
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
First Year ◽  
Teddy Bear ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Wheel Chair ◽  
Do So

First year engineering design courses arenow common across Canadian engineering schools.These courses can be challenging to develop and deliver.They are often stuck in the chicken versus egg problem.Can I teach design with no engineering? Can I teachengineering with no design? How does one introducefour years of engineering education and an engineeringcareer in one course? How to do so across many or allengineering disciplines? How to do so in a foundationalmanner? Can it be done in a meaningful way? Can it beengaging and fun? A Teddy Bear Wheel Chair (TBWC)design project is the focal point of Guelph’s first yearengineering design course. The TBWC integratescomputers, mechanics, biomechanics (Teddy Bear style),environment, safety, sustainability, materials, costing,hands-on, perseverance, ethics and DESIGN. The TBWCparticipates in curling, sprinting and scoring goals. Theresult is a challenging and fun competition thatintroduces all of Guelph’s engineering students to theirengineering design careers. This paper and presentationwill share one instructor’s efforts to make all of this work.

AN ENGINEERING DESIGN PROJECT TO PROVIDE MULTI-DISCIPLINARY EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seach Chyr (Ernest) Goh ◽  
Sumi Siddiqua
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
First Year ◽  
Final Exam ◽  
Sustainable Engineering ◽  
Design Project ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
Negative Comments ◽  
The University

First year engineering students at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, take the Fundamentals of Sustainable Engineering Design course as part of the suite of common courses for all engineering students regardless of discipline. The largest assessment components of the course are the final exam (40%) and the design project (40%). For the design project, teams of 4 – 6 students build a scaled-down prototype of a Well Ventilated yet Energy Efficient Room (WeVeyEER) that must be able to maintain its interior temperature at 10°C above ambient and at the same time continuously exchange stale air from within with fresh air from outside. It also has to meet load-bearing, size and power supply constraints. The energy consumption, rate of air exchange and weight are parameters for comparing performance of the prototypes. The majority of teams (55 out of 64) could achieve the requirements. Feedback about the project was mixed, with 57 positive and 56 negative comments.  

scholarly journals Assistive Technology for Freshmen Design and K-12 Outreach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devin R. Berg ◽  
Matthew Wigdahl ◽  
Charis D. Collins
Keyword(s):  
General Education ◽  
Assistive Technology ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Qualitative Assessment ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
Design Project ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The University ◽  
Design Experience

This Work in Progress paper presents on the design of project-based learning approach focused on assistive technology as applied in a freshmen level engineering course which also integrates outreach with the local K12 system. The university course targets general education topics as well as an introductory engineering design experience and includes content on the engineering design process, societal implications of engineering design, and a participatory lab-based design project. A partnering class of 5th graders from a local elementary school made use of a daily block of time set aside for academic interventions and individual project-based work to collaborate with the university class. A qualitative assessment was conducted and has thus far has revealed that the university students found the assistive technology theme of the semester-long design project to be meaningful. For the K12 students, the survey results and anecdotal observations suggest that we were only moderately successful in constructing a meaningful and purposeful design experience, from their perspective.

scholarly journals Teaching Design to First-Year Engineering Students

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McGuire ◽  
Kin Fun Li ◽  
Fayez Gebali
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Considerable Effort ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Product Engineering ◽  
Teaching Design ◽  
Integrated Communication ◽  
The University

Design is associated with the invention,planning and building a product. Engineering design, inparticular, takes considerable effort, skills, andintegration of knowledge; hence, it is difficult to teachfreshmen this subject since they have not possessed ordeveloped the proper skill set yet. The Faculty ofEngineering at the University of Victoria has beenteaching engineering design (in two successive courses)to all first-year engineering students. In addition toattending plenary lectures, student teams are working oncompetitive projects in the laboratory, while participatingin highly integrated communication modules. In thiswork, we discuss the curricula of these design courses,model of delivery and share our experience for the pastthree years.

scholarly journals INFLUENCE OF LEARNING PREFERENCE ON SELF-EFFICACY AND PERFORMANCE IN MIXED-MODALITY FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon-Michael J. Booth ◽  
Thomas E. Doyle ◽  
David M. Musson
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Learning Preferences ◽  
First Year ◽  
Final Examination ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Learning Preference ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
And Performance

All students have preferences for the way they receive and distribute information when the objective is learning. These preferences can be shown to have an effect on self-efficacy and on performance. The relationships between learning preference, self-efficacy and performance were studied using survey and grade data obtained from a first-year Engineering Design and Graphics course. The students were placed in one of three groups according to the modality (type) of design project they were given; a Simulation-Based project (SIM) using a software simulation tool, a Prototyping project (PRT) using a 3D printer, or a Simulation and Prototyping project (SAP) where they had to complete a design using both tools. Participants were given a custom survey that assessed self-efficacy and the VARK learning styles inventory which assesses learners on Visual, Aural, Read / Write and Kinesthetic learning preferences. 97 students were surveyed representing a response rate of 22.6%. Student performance was assessed by examining scores on a subset of questions related to design visualization on the final examination for the course. Data analysis involved examining the correlation between learning style and self-efficacy, and scores on final examination for each of the three course modality groups. Findings from this study include higher performance for Kinesthetic learners assigned a simulation-based project and low performance for Read/Write learners with a prototyping project. This study supports the hypothesis that student performance may depend on learning preferences coupled with design project modality.

scholarly journals An Economic Analysis of a University Educational Cafeteria Composting Program—Bobcat Blend

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 639-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Sanders ◽  
Tina Marie Waliczek ◽  
Jean-Marc Gandonou
Keyword(s):  
Organic Waste ◽  
First Year ◽  
State University ◽  
Pilot Site ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The University ◽  
Collection Sites

At Texas State University, a cafeteria-composting pilot program was established in which students source-separated their organic waste at one of the food courts while the program educated students on the value of organic waste and compost. Waste sorting bins were set up in a dining hall to direct students to sort trash into recyclables, compostables, and trash. Waste audit results demonstrated the value of the operation to the university in terms of savings in waste hauling expenditures, as well as showed the percent contamination, and percent waste diverted to the university's recycling and composting program. There was a significant difference between pre and post-test waste audits. The pilot site composting program resulted in a net loss of $3741.35 to the university during the first year, but was expected to produce a positive net return of $2585.11 in subsequent years. The pilot test showed the program was most successful when ongoing education at the dining hall occurred. Additionally, the student-run composting program resulted in hands-on training for students in producing a valuable horticultural commodity in an emerging waste management field. Results also indicated opportunities for further diversion such as the incorporation of compostable cups and utensils, as well as through expanding the operation to include more collection locations. With more collection sites and, therefore, more efficiency, the expanded composting program has the potential to become a self-supporting operation.

scholarly journals INTRODUCTING A NEW ENGINEERING COURSE: A LEARNING EXPERIENCE FOR STUDENTS AND FACULTY

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dare ◽  
Brian Cooke
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
First Year ◽  
Design Element ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Second Year ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time

A Task Force was created by the Faculty of Engineering at the University of New Brunswick in September 2004 charged with creating a new course for all first year engineering students to be delivered for the first time in September 2005. The course, to be taken by approximately 270 students, was to integrate material from other first year courses, introduce the students to working in teams, contain a substantial design element through a design project, and introduce communication skills. Nine professors from throughout engineering “volunteered” to help develop and deliver the course. In this paper we own up to what we did wrong during the first two years of delivery of this course, and (naturally!) counter this by celebrating our successes. Students are assessed based on a combination of individual and team submissions, with some submissions being oral and others written. This paper will outline the complex assessment scheme we initially used, and how we later simplified it. Rubrics were used to evaluate many of the course assignments. For most of the instructors, this was the first time they had used rubrics and so it was a learning experience to both develop and apply them. We show how we adapted their use in the second year of delivery after the experiences of the first year. We were pleased with the way that the assessments were mostly built around the design project – this helped the students grasp why clear communication is vital and enabled them to obtain continual feedback on the project. We were also delighted that an element of social responsibility was introduced into the course by making the project an international “Engineers Without Borders” project based in Africa. We believe this added an additional dimension to the course and especially the project. The professor-delivered skits were especially popular! Delivered by two wannabe actors, they introduced the students in a humorous manner to the different types of engineering that are taught at UNB. Engineering students at UNB have to commit to their specific engineering field from their first day at UNB, so these skits were included to ensure the students were exposed to all the UNB engineering disciplines. We conclude the paper with our plans for delivery of the course in September 2007 and beyond.

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