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 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 NOVICE DESIGNERS' USE OF PROTOTYPES AS COMMUNICATION TOOLS

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 2277-2286
Author(s):  
Sandeep Krishnakumar ◽  
Carlye Lauff ◽  
Christopher McComb ◽  
Catherine Berdanier ◽  
Jessica Menold
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Outcomes ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Communication Tools ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Critical Design ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Novice Designers ◽  
Future Work

AbstractPrototypes are critical design artifacts, and recent studies have established the ability of prototypes to facilitate communication. However, prior work suggests that novice designers often fail to perceive prototypes as effective communication tools, and struggle to rationalize design decisions made during prototyping tasks. To understand the interactions between communication and prototypes, design pitches from 40 undergraduate engineering design teams were collected and qualitatively analysed. Our findings suggest that students used prototypes to explain and persuade, aligning with prior studies of design practitioners. The results also suggest that students tend to use prototypes to justify design decisions and adverse outcomes. Future work will seek to understand novice designers’ use of prototypes as communication tools in further depth. Ultimately, this work will inform the creation of pedagogical strategies to provide students with the skills needed to effectively communicate design solutions and intent.

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.

scholarly journals Adult Undergraduate Engineering Student Experience

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Ciston ◽  
Maria-Isabel Carnasciali ◽  
Viktoria Zelenak ◽  
Michael Hollis
Keyword(s):  
Student Experience ◽  
Engineering Student ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Adult Undergraduate

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.

Application of a Protocol to Observe Leadership Behaviors in Engineering Design Teams

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Righter ◽  
Chase Wentzky ◽  
Joshua D. Summers
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Leadership Behaviors ◽  
Informal Leadership ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Function Model ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Protocol Study ◽  
Relational Behaviors ◽  
Functional Leadership

Abstract This protocol study was conducted to increase understanding of the emergence and distribution of functional leadership behaviors in undergraduate engineering design teams. This study applies the protocol presented at the 2018 IDETC to observe design teams consisting of novice engineers constructing a function model during a video recorded session. The videos were then coded for leadership functions and analyzed to determine the distribution of informal leadership functions between the team members and the temporal emergence of the informal leadership structures within the teams. Leadership behaviors were observed to be predominantly transition and action functions with relational behaviors occurring less frequently. The behaviors were quantified by number of occurrences per quintile. The leaders observed to perform the most leadership behaviors early in the sessions often remained consistent. However, leadership functions were shared between team members as demonstrated by the leadership network graphs.

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