scholarly journals EXPERIENCES WITH INTER-YEAR CAPSTONE DESIGN TEAMS

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. D. Mann ◽  
D. S. Petkau ◽  
K. J. Dick ◽  
S. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Team Leaders ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Engineering Degree ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
The University ◽  
University Setting ◽  
Capstone Design

Design teams in industry are composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds at various stages of their careers. A unique set of group dynamics will be created with one member, likely someone with sufficient experience, assuming the responsibility of being the team leader. Design teams formed in engineering classes within the university setting typically consist of individuals at the same stage of their academic training, thus students do not experience the same group dynamics as they will find in industry. In an attempt to give undergraduate engineering students this experience, inter-year design teams were formed from engineering students registered in courses representing different stages of completion of the engineering degree. Students registered in the final-year design course were expected to assume the roles of team leaders or coleaders. This paper will discuss a number of issues that were observed with inter-year capstone design teams. It has been concluded that the disadvantages of inter-year design teams outweigh the advantages.

scholarly journals Developing students’ aptitudes through University-Industry collaboration

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Aizpun ◽  
Diego Sandino ◽  
Inaki Merideno
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
Collaborative Approach ◽  
Engineering Knowledge ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Student Community ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Industry Collaboration ◽  
The University ◽  
University Industry

<p>In addition to the engineering knowledge base that has been traditionally taught, today’s undergraduate engineering students need to be given the opportunity to practice a set of skills that will be demanded to them by future employers, namely: creativity, teamwork, problem solving, leadership and the ability to generate innovative ideas. In order to achieve this and educate engineers with both in-depth technical knowledge and professional skills, universities must carry out their own innovating and find suitable approaches that serve their students. This article presents a novel approach that involves university-industry collaboration. It is based on creating a student community for a particular company, allowing students to deal with real industry projects and apply what they are learning in the classroom. A sample project for the German sports brand adidas is presented, along with the project results and evaluation by students and teachers. The university-industry collaborative approach is shown to be beneficial for both students and industry.</p>

Collaboration of Technical Editing Students With Mechanical Engineering Seniors in a Capstone Design Course

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clinton Lanier ◽  
William S. Janna ◽  
John I. Hochstein
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Thermal Systems ◽  
Senior Design ◽  
Engineering Consulting ◽  
Technical Editing ◽  
Capstone Design ◽  
Consulting Companies

An innovative capstone design course titled “Design of Fluid Thermal Systems,” involves groups of seniors working on various semester-long design projects. Groups are composed of 3 or 4 members that bid competitively on various projects. Once projects are awarded, freshmen enrolled in the “Introduction to Mechanical Engineering” course are assigned to work with the senior design teams. The senior teams (Engineering Consulting Companies) function like small consulting companies that employ co-operative education students; e.g., the freshmen. In Fall 2006, the Engineering Consulting Companies also worked with students enrolled in a Technical Editing (TE) course—“Writing and Editing in the Professions”—within the English Department. The TE students would be given reports or instructional manuals that the Mechanical Engineering (ME) students had to write as part of their capstone project, and the resulting editing of their documents would be done by these TE students. Subsequently, the ME students were given a survey and asked to comment on this experience. In addition, the TE students were also surveyed and asked to comment as well. It was concluded that the collaboration should continue for at least one more cycle, and that the TE students were more favorably inclined toward this collaboration than were the engineering students.

Incorporation of Manufacturing Process Design Into the Senior Capstone Design Course

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas V. Gallagher ◽  
Ronald A. L. Rorrer
Keyword(s):  
Process Design ◽  
Manufacturing Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Cnc Machining ◽  
Senior Design ◽  
Solid Models ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
The University ◽  
Capstone Design

At the University Colorado Denver, a manufacturing process design course was specifically created to raise the level of the as constructed senior design projects in the department. The manufacturing process design course creates a feed forward loop into the senior design course, while the senior design course generates a feedback loop into the process design course. Every student and student project has the opportunity to utilize CNC mills and lathes where appropriate. Specific emphasis is placed upon the interfaces from solid models to CAM models and subsequently the interface from CAM models to the machine tool. Often the construction of many senior design projects approaches the level of blacksmithing due to time constraints and lack of fabrication background. Obviously, most engineering students have neither the time nor the ability to become expert fabricators. However, the wide incorporation of CNC machining in the program allows, an opportunity to not only raise the quality of their prototypes, but also to immerse in the hands on experience of living with the ramifications of their own design decisions in manufacturing. Additionally, some of the art of fabrication is turned into the science of fabrication. The focus of this paper will be primarily on examining the effect of formal incorporation of the manufacturing process in the capstone design course.

scholarly journals INTERDISCIPLINARY CAPSTONE DESIGN STREAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO: IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherly Pearce ◽  
Steve Lambert ◽  
Wayne Parker
Keyword(s):  
Team Members ◽  
Course Structure ◽  
Capstone Course ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Capstone Courses ◽  
Interdisciplinary Design ◽  
Project Deliverables ◽  
The University ◽  
Logistical Barrier ◽  
Capstone Design

An interdisciplinary design approach is a collaborative effort involving team members from different engineering disciplines to solve a problem. An opportunity for interdisciplinary education exists in the fourth year capstone design project. Interdisciplinary capstone courses are offered at other Canadian universities but, at the University of Waterloo (UW) the co-operative undergraduate engineering program poses a logistical barrier to students interacting with students in other disciplines for capstone design projects. Currently, students can form their own interdisciplinary team but differences in course structure, project deliverables, and design terminology and method between engineering disciplines is challenging for students and instructors. An investigation into the feasibility of a new interdisciplinary capstone design course at UW is undertaken. A possible home for the interdisciplinary capstone course could be under the Chair of Design Engineering. Overall, receptivity among departments is positive but a more comprehensive analysis is required.

scholarly journals Adding a Continuous Improvement Design Element to a Sophomore-Level Thermodynamics Course: Using the Drinking Bird as a Heat Engine

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-372
Author(s):  
Amy Warncke Lang ◽  
Paulius V. Puzinauskas
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Heat Engine ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Design Element ◽  
University Of Alabama ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Course Material ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
Time Required ◽  
The University

To increase the design experience gained by undergraduate engineering students and to enhance their iterative thinking skills needed in the engineering profession, a new project was developed and assigned in the sophomore-level thermodynamics class taught at the University of Alabama. Students designed a mechanism using a toy drinking bird as a heat engine with the goal of minimizing the time required to raise a small weight a given distance. Besides building teamwork and design skills, several key thermodynamic concepts were also visualized for the students, thus increasing their overall comprehension of the course material.

scholarly journals AN EXPLORATION OF COMMUNICATION AND KNOWLEDGE APPLICATION IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING CAPSTONE DESIGN TEAMS

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Milicevic ◽  
Narges Balouchestani Asli ◽  
Deborah Tihanyi ◽  
Kamran Behdinan
Keyword(s):  
Student Experience ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Open Communication ◽  
Knowledge Application ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Team Based Learning ◽  
Collaborative Team ◽  
Capstone Design

Multidisciplinary capstone design projectsoffer students the opportunity to solve complexengineering problems that span multiple disciplinesthrough collaborative, team-based learning. Using amixed quantitative and qualitative approach, this studyexamines student experience in a multidisciplinarycapstone design course by analyzing how disciplinaryknowledge is applied, taught, and learned among teammembers. Our preliminary findings suggest correlationsbetween open communication, sharing of disciplinaryknowledge, and the likelihood of taking design risks.Future work will further explore the reasons behind thesecorrelations.

scholarly journals DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM WORK ATTRIBUTE AMONG UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING STUDENTS: TRENDS ACROSS 4 YEARS OF ASSESSMENT

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Grocutt ◽  
A. Barron ◽  
M. Khakhar ◽  
T.A. O'Neill ◽  
W.D. Rosehart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Program Accreditation ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
University Of Calgary ◽  
Teamwork Skills ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

The Engineers Canada Accreditation Board outlines 12 Canadian Engineering Graduate Attributes required for program accreditation. One of these attributes is Individual and Team Work. Since 2016, at the University of Calgary, there has been a voluntary, undergraduate-wide survey administered to the Schulich School of Engineering students every spring via an online platform. The purpose of the survey is to assess students’ perceived development of teamwork skills during their program, and identify avenues to improve program offerings. After four consecutive years of this survey, with sample sizes ranging from 683-973 students, there are three main trends that can be identified: students perceive teamwork skills as highly important for their future careers, there are noticeable differences between male and female students regarding teamwork experiences, and students value teamwork skills training and opportunities for peer feedback. Implications of these findings are that there are gendered teamwork experiences among undergraduate engineering students and more research is needed to understand interventions that can mitigate this.

scholarly journals THE USE OF LEGO ® SERIOUS PLAY IN THE ENGINEERING DESIGN CLASSROOM

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Bulmer
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Team Building ◽  
Planning Problem ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Instructional Technique ◽  
Experiential Process ◽  
Design Innovation ◽  
The University ◽  
Innovation And Entrepreneurship

With the belief that teaching design, innovation and entrepreneurship studies requires methods and techniques that are themselves innovative and entrepreneurial in nature, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™ (LSP) has been used within the Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (TME) Program at the University of New Brunswick, Faculty of Engineering, as a complementary instructional technique since 2005. LSP is a creative and experiential process that can facilitate strategic planning, problem solving, team building, and innovation mining through the use of specialized LEGO® brick kits. Designed for the corporate environment, it made its formal debut in 2002. Since then, over 250 global organizations, in 27 countries have used this facilitated thinking technique. Example companies that offer enthusiastic testimonials for the methodology include Daimler/Chrysler, Verizon Wireless, Ikea, and Pfizer. LSP is now emerging in the educational environment. The current generation of students, before becoming gripped to electronics, was encouraged by parents to use their hands and imaginations to construct models using LEGO® bricks. They were at one time ‘Imagineers’. In addition, engineering students tend to work hard and play harder. Thus it became desirable to test how introducing the element of play [1][2] with purpose into the Entrepreneurship and Design classrooms could awaken students’ creative energies that spur innovation. “Constructivism” [3] has been increasingly emphasized as an effective approach to learning. Also, the related “Constructionist” theory suggests that by using our hands and 3D modeling to explore ideas we can surface more information, past experience, intuition and understanding than we can effectively express through speech alone. Based on the promising LSP initial TME pilot results in 2006, it was predicted that Engineering students as a whole could further benefit from the LSP experience and use this form of concrete thinking to solve design/innovation challenges and teaming issues. The LSP pilot action research was extended in collaboration with graduating Civil Engineering students in their Team Capstone Design Course winter 2008. Lego based (LSP) workshops subsequently conducted demonstrated a positive impact on the design teams with respect to their views on team responsibility and accountability, ability to collaborate and cooperate as well as their awareness of team risks and responsibilities over those teams with no LSP workshop experience.

scholarly journals Leveraging Students’ Passion and Creativity: ETHOS at the University of Dayton

2014 ◽  
pp. 180-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Pinnell ◽  
Malcolm Daniels ◽  
Kevin Hallinan ◽  
Gretchen Berkemeier
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Faculty Research ◽  
Research Support ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Dayton

The Engineers in Technical Humanitarian Opportunities of Service-learning (ETHOS) program was developed in the spring of 2001 by an interdisciplinary group (electrical, chemical, civil and mechanical) of undergraduate engineering students at the University of Dayton (UD). ETHOS was founded on the belief that engineers are more apt and capable to appropriately serve our world if they have an understanding of technology’s global linkage with values, culture, society, politics, and the economy. Since 2001, the ETHOS program at UD has grown and changed. From conceptualization, to implementation, to maturation and national recognition, the program has addressed challenges of academic acceptance, programmatic integration and research support as a project-based approach to global engagement. This paper discusses how the program developed from a student idea to a nationally known program. It provides some examples of how projects from this program were integrated into other courses and linked to faculty research. Finally, it will present some of the challenges that face a program such as ETHOS.

Assessing the use of Blackboard for Course Delivery in an Engineering Programme

2012 ◽  
pp. 178-193
Author(s):  
Jacek Uziak ◽  
M. Tunde Oladiran ◽  
Richie Moalosi
Keyword(s):  
Management System ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Course Delivery ◽  
Degree Programme ◽  
University Of Botswana ◽  
Engineering Degree ◽  
Mode Of Instruction ◽  
The University ◽  
Engineering Programme

The purpose of the study covered in this chapter was to evaluate the preferences of mechanical engineering students at the University of Botswana regarding course delivery, with special consideration for Blackboard technology. The study was carried out during three consecutive years (from 2007/2008 to 2009/10 academic years) for one course in the mechanical engineering degree programme. A questionnaire was administered to three cohorts of third year mechanical engineering students; a total of 101 students participated in the study. As the results of this study were encouraging, it is recommended that more courses in the programme should migrate to a blended mode of instruction delivery using Blackboard or any other approved learning management system.

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