scholarly journals ENHANCING DESIGN EDUCATION BY PRODUCT REVERSE ENGINEERING

Author(s):  
Kezheng Huang

As science and technology develops faster and faster, the accumulation of knowledge is exponential over time. Engineering education must keep up with the changing environment including engineering practice. As each individual’s capability is limited, engineering students need choosing right stuff to learn so that they can graduate as qualified engineers with both broad knowledge and practical skills as required in industry. In this paper, the current engineering education is discussed with some trends, such as creativity training as most have insisted in project-based hands-on design education, broad knowledge including essential engineering science knowledge. As a comprehensive discipline, design engineering courses exist to teach engineering design fundamental. Due to immature design theory and methodology, the “learning by doing” approach is widely accepted to complement current engineering design education. In this paper, an integrated effort is introduced which combines together the two basic aspects, knowledge and skill, in order to increase the half-life of engineering knowledge and enhance the hands-on skills at the same time. Based on new development in design research, an experimental design education using Product Reverse Engineering (PRE) as education tool, is introduced with initial evaluation for suitability in design education.

Author(s):  
Aleksander Czekanski ◽  
Maher Al-Dojayli ◽  
Tom Lee

Engineering practice and design in particular have gone through several changes during the last two decades whether due to scientific achievements including the evolution in novel engineering materials, computational advancements, globalization and economic constraints as well as the strategic needs which are the drive for innovative engineering. All these factors have impacted and shaped to certain extent the educational system in North America and Canada in particular. Currently, high percentage of the engineering graduates would require extensive training in industry to be able to conduct reliable complex engineering designs supported by scientific verification and validation, understand the complete design stages and phases, and identify the economic and cultural impact on such designs. This task, however, faces great challenges without educational support in such vastly changing economy.Lots of attention has been devoted to engineering design education in the recent years to incorporate engineering design courses supported by team design projects and capstone projects. Nevertheless, the lack of integrated education system towards engineering design programs can undermine the benefits of such efforts. In this paper, observations and analysis of the challenges in engineering design are presented from both academic and industrial points of view. Furthermore, a proposed vertical and lateral engineering education program is discussed. This program is structured to cover every year of the engineering education curricula, which emphasizes on innovative thinking, design strategies, support from and integration with other technical engineering courses, the use of advanced analysis tools, team collaboration, management and leadership, multidisciplinary education and industrial involvement. Its courses have just commenced for freshmen engineering students at the newly launched Mechanical Engineering Department at the Lassonde School of Engineering, York University.


Author(s):  
Khosrow Farahbakhsh

The face of engineering education is rapidly changing as more emphasis is placed on a self-directed, problem-based and design-driven approach. The School of Engineering at the University of Guelph has recognized the importance of engineering design education by introducing capstone design courses and encouraging incorporation of design in many senior-level courses. Two recent initiatives include inclusion of a student-led laboratory design project in the Mass Transfer Operations course (ENGG*3470) and a self-directed, problem-based approach to teaching a new graduate course in Pollution Prevention Engineering (ENGG*6790). Both courses placed a significant emphasis on “learning by doing” and importance of “self-directed learning”. Both courses also encouraged the development of various design skills such as problem definition, information collection, collaboration, innovation, communication, life-cycle costing, etc. This paper provides insights on these two courses and the approaches used to ensure a collaborative, hands-on and self-directed learning experience for students.


Author(s):  
Warren Stiver

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.


Author(s):  
Yasemin Tekmen-Araci ◽  
Llewellyn Mann

Creativity is essential in the engineering design process. Researchers, academics, educators, and engineering organisations all agree that further improvement is necessary in training methods for fostering creativity in engineering education. Even though studies exist about how creativity should be taught in engineering education, there is still limited research about the challenges of practical implementation. To address this gap, an action research project has been conducted in two undergraduate Mechanical Engineering design subjects at a prominent university in Australia with the aim of enhancing creativity during the problem-solving process. The study shows the many challenges that arose when enhancing creativity in engineering design education, and the issues that surrounded this implementation. Although teaching creativity to engineering students is a challenge, this study illuminates the difficulties of convincing the engineering instructors to embed creativity in the subjects they teach. Overall, the study found that instructors' understandings and beliefs about creativity influence their teaching approach and what they value. These influences were around four main areas: the instructors' focus on the design product being produced, their educational backgrounds and training, the subjective nature of creativity and their beliefs about it, and the performance mindset of the instructors. These findings suggest that enhancing creativity among engineering students is not possible until the engineering educators and practitioners understand and value creativity practice.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Sauder ◽  
Yan Jin

Students are frequently trained in a variety of methodologies to promote their creativity in the collaborative environment. Some of the training and methods work well, while others present challenges. A collaborative stimulation approach is taken to extend creative cognition to collaborative creativity, providing new insights into design methodologies and training. An experiment using retrospective protocol analysis, originally conducted to identify the various types of collaborative stimulation, revealed how diversity of past creative experiences correlates with collaborative stimulation. This finding aligns with previous research. Unfortunately, many current engineering design education programs do not adequately provide opportunities for diverse creative experiences. As this study and other research has found, there is a need to create courses in engineering design programs which encourage participation in diverse creative activities.


Author(s):  
Warren F. Smith

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.


Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Hart ◽  
Steven B. Shooter ◽  
Charles J. Kim

Hands-on product dissection and reverse engineering exercises have been shown to have a positive impact on engineering education, and many universities have incorporated such exercises in their curriculum. The CIBER-U project seeks to examine the potential to utilize cyberinfrastructure to enhance these active-learning exercises. We have formulated a framework for product dissection and reverse engineering activity creation to support a more rigorous approach to assessing other exercises for satisfaction of the CIBER-U project goals and adapting the best practices. This framework is driven by the fulfillment of learning outcomes and considers the maturity of students at different levels. Prototype exercises developed with the framework are presented. The approach is sufficiently general that it can be applied to the consideration and adaption of other types of exercises while ensuring satisfaction of the established goals.


Author(s):  
Zol Bahri Razali ◽  
James Trevelyan

Empirical studies suggest that practical intelligence acquired in engineering laboratories is valuable in engineering practice and could also be a useful learning outcome that is a result from a laboratory experience. To prove this, the author started a project to understand further about the practical learning outcomes from traditional laboratory classes. When tools used by psychologists were applied to measure practical intelligence in an electronics laboratory class, not only could a significant gain in hands-on practical intelligence be measured, but students’ ability to diagnose equipment faults could also be predicted. For the first time, therefore, the author can demonstrate that there are real advantages inherent in hands-on laboratory classes, and supported by Outcome Based Education (OBE) method, it is possible to measure this advantage. It is possible that measurements of practical intelligence may reveal new and more powerful ways for students to acquire practical knowledge. The results firstly demonstrate the ability to devise effective ways to assess the outcomes of practical intelligence acquired by engineering students from their laboratory experiences. The results from the study show that the score on practical intelligence outcomes is proportional with the outcomes of the ability in diagnosing equipment faults. Therefore, the novel results suggest that practical intelligence scores predict the ability to diagnose experiment faults for similar laboratory equipment.


2022 ◽  
pp. 271-289
Author(s):  
Violeta Meneses Carvalho ◽  
Cristina S. Rodrigues ◽  
Rui A. Lima ◽  
Graça Minas ◽  
Senhorinha F. C. F. Teixeira

Engineering education is a challenging topic that has been deeply explored in order to provide better educational experiences to engineering students, and the learning by doing approach has been appraised. Amidst a global pandemic, an engineering summer program denominated i9Masks emerged and aimed to create transparent facial masks for preventing the virus spreading. This project had the participation of 21 students from different engineering areas, as well as professors and monitors whose guidance and commitment were of great importance for its success. Aiming to understand the importance of this engineering hands-on project for students' training, two inquiries were applied, being one for students and the other for professors and monitors/researchers. Students described this initiative as an amazing and innovative experience that they would like to repeat and considered useful for their careers. Regarding the impact perceived by the teaching staff, the results proved that they enjoyed participating in the i9MASKS project and sharing knowledge with students in a practical way.


Author(s):  
Erich Devendorf ◽  
Phil Cormier ◽  
Deborah Moore-Russo ◽  
Kemper Lewis

Design education has traditionally been incorporated into the engineering curriculum in the junior or senior year through upper level mechanical design courses and capstone design projects. However, there is a general trend in engineering education to incorporate design activities at the freshman and sophomore level. The design aspects of these courses provide a unique opportunity to integrate global, economic, environmental, and societal factors with traditional design considerations. Incorporating these early in an engineering curriculum supports a broad engineering education in accordance with ABET required Outcome h. In this paper we introduce global, economic, environmental, and societal factors into a sophomore level engineering design course using strategies adapted from a Product Archaeology paradigm. Specifically, functional modeling is synthesized with a product dissection platform to create a foundation to demonstrate the broader impacts of engineering design decisions. The effectiveness of using Product Archaeology-based educational strategies to facilitate the learning objectives of Outcome h is evaluated using student surveys taken over a two year period.


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