Best Practices for Engineering Design Project in Undergraduate Student Education With Eco-Friendly Vehicle Design

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Wee Lim ◽  
Kim Hoo Goh ◽  
Wen Feng Lu
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Problem Formulation ◽  
Vehicle Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Design Specifications ◽  
National University ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
One Year

With the recommendation from ABET, each engineering student should go through a major engineering design experience and understand how to go from design specifications to a final artifact. The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) started automotive design projects including competition vehicles and proof of concept vehicles for its undergraduate students many years ago. These projects aim to provide practical engineering education to the students through vehicle design and fabrication with hands-on experience. The project lifecycle usually does not last longer than one year as it is governed by the competition and the academic cycle. With many years of experience supervising students, the best practice of guiding students learning through this engineering design project within one academic year is developed. Before each project, students will first go through training and apprenticeship. Such project usually starts with problem formulation that studies the requirements of vehicle for the competition and the resources available. The team of students will go from design specifications to a final vehicle prototype with generating alternatives, synthesizing, analyzing, fabrication, testing and evaluating. This method allows sustainability in vehicle design projects. NUS Eco-car project is used as a case study to illustrate the best practice. Our past experience showed that students trained in this project have strong practical and analytical skills and are able to manage and communicate in a team well.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Problem Formulation and Ideation Skills Learned Throughout an Engineering Design Course

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Dinar ◽  
Yong-Seok Park ◽  
Jami J. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Objective Assessment ◽  
Problem Formulation ◽  
Engineering Product ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Final Project ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
Long Course

Conventional syllabi of engineering design courses either do not pay enough attention to conceptual design skills, or they lack an objective assessment of those skills to show students’ progress. During a semester-long course of advanced engineering product design, we assigned three major design projects to twenty five students. For each project we asked them to formulate the problems in the Problem Formulator web-based testbed. In addition, we collected sketches for all three design problems, feasibility analyses for the last two, and a working prototype for the final project. We report the students’ problem formulation and ideation in terms of a set of nine problem formulation characteristics and ASU’s ideation effectiveness metrics respectively. We discuss the limitations that the choice of the design problems caused, and how the progress of a class of students during a semester-long design course resulted in a convergence in sets of metrics that we have defined to characterize problem formulation and ideation. We also review the results of students of a similar course which we reported last year in order to find common trends.

scholarly journals INTEGRATED TEAM DESIGN PROJECTS AT CARLETON UNIVERSITY

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul V. Straznicky ◽  
R. G. Langlois ◽  
M. McDill ◽  
R. Miller ◽  
S. A. Sjolander ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
First Year ◽  
Systematic Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
The Future ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Team Design ◽  
Integrated Team

The engineering design curriculum is receiving much-deserved attention at all universities in Canada and abroad, and many interesting approaches to design education are under development. One such approach is the topic of this paper. Its key feature is a 4th-year integrated team design project at M&AE, a culmination of systematic design education that starts in the first year. The paper will describe this approach, the accomplishments and the plans for the future.

Steps Towards Geographically Dispersed Collaborative Student Design Projects

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shayne Gooch ◽  
Tony Medland
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Time Zones ◽  
Collaborative Working ◽  
Design Projects

A need exists to teach undergraduate students the skills required for collaborative working in geographically dispersed teams. A program for running collaborative student engineering design projects between the Universities of Bath (United Kingdom) and Canterbury (New Zealand) was implemented in January 2002. This paper presents the approach to collaborative working on this first project. The paper shows that whilst the Universities run on different education programs, and are in different time zones, a path is found for the integration of a collaborative design project within the curriculum of both design courses. The primary forms of communication were email, project web pages and videoconferences. The results of the study provide a basis for further collaborative exchanges between the Universities.

scholarly journals Electrical Engineering Design Course at Memorial University of Newfoundland

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tariq Iqbal
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
System Integration ◽  
Electrical Engineering ◽  
Organization Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Memorial University Of Newfoundland ◽  
General Product ◽  
Product Definition

The Engi. 5800 Electrical Engineering Design course was introduced in 2008 to the electrical engineering curriculum of Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). This compulsory course is offered in term 5 and typical enrolment is about 25 to 30 students. The nature of this course is fundamentally different from other lecture-based courses taught at the Faculty of Engineering. In this course, students work in groups on two design projects at a time. One design project i.e. emergency light design is a guided design project while the other is a student led design project. Design projects require students to follow a hierarchy of design process which includes: the general product definition, specifications and requirements, functional block diagrams, definition of specification of functional blocks for circuit level synthesis and implementation, system integration, simulation or modeling, testing and verification. All projects are a significant technical challenge and require students to apply their knowledge of electrical engineering learned through courses in the electrical engineering program. The course is designed to provide a meaningful design experience and encourage confidence building in students. This paper describes course details, organization, design methodology, types of projects and course outcome.

Improving Student Design Skills Through Successive Design and Build Projects

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rober Choate ◽  
Kevin Schmaltz
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Program Outcomes ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Design Component ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
Team Design

Mechanical Engineering students at Western Kentucky University (WKU) are given instruction and must demonstrate their abilities to execute design projects during each of their four years of study. The features and goals of these projects are governed by a Professional Plan, which assures that graduates of the program have experienced key areas of the engineering profession and shown the ability to perform in an acceptable professional manner. The Engineering Design component of the Professional Plan is the focal point of the professional experiences. For students to be able to execute a structured approach to solving problems with an appreciation for the art of engineering, they must experience meaningful projects that expand and challenge their capabilities. WKU ME freshmen individually create physical devices with little engineering science, developing a sense of the manufacturing skills required for realistic designs. Sophomore students execute a team design project with more technical expectations, and also individually complete a design and build project that continues from their freshman project. As juniors, the team design experience is extended to an external audience with greater technical rigor, and additionally student teams implement the ASME Student Design Competition (ASME SDC) as their design and build project. The goal is for seniors to be prepared to implement an industry-based design and build project subject to realistic constraints and customer needs. The implementation of the Engineering Design Component has evolved over the past four years guided by ongoing assessment of both course outcomes and program outcomes, internal and external evaluations of the design project outcomes, and the maturing status of the program facilities and curriculum. One strength of the Professional Plan framework is the ability to build upon previous coursework, assess student progress, and adjust course activities based on prior assessment results to assure that graduates are capable of practicing as engineers. This paper will detail a sustainable model for implementing the design process across the curriculum, with the basis for selecting projects, managing the efforts of student teams, and providing effective feedback. In addition to the engineering design component, the use of professional communications and professional tools are also structured within the design projects.

scholarly journals INTEGRATING HUMAN FACTOR CONSIDERATIONS INTO CAPSTONE DESIGN PROJECTS

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly R. Algra ◽  
Clifton R. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Human Factor ◽  
Design Tools ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Capstone Design

Engineers are, in general, poor atconsidering human factors in our designs. Human factorsare an important aspect of engineering design that mustbe introduced and nurtured in all engineers, but is achallenging problem. We have undertaken a case study ofa past capstone design project to evaluate how humanfactors were considered. This paper will present a casestudy of this project’s application of human factors.Our work hopes to identify what influenced anincreased consideration of human factors, which led tothe success of this project. A combination of diversifiedbackgrounds may have played a significant factor in thedesign process, but there were, however, likely otherfactors that impacted the team’s performance. Ourultimate goal is to use the information gained from thiscase study to develop training and design tools toincrease usability of other projects.

Engineering Design and Education: A Case Study on Designing a Competition Fuel Efficient Vehicle Through Experiential Learning

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Feng Lu ◽  
Hong Wee Lim ◽  
Kim Hoo Goh
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Engineering Programs ◽  
Education Environment ◽  
Engineering Design Problems ◽  
Hands On ◽  
National University

Engineering design involves a series of steps that lead to the creation of a product, a system, or a service to meet desired needs. The design and creation of innovative solutions to challenging engineering design problems require young engineers to be immersed in an education environment which challenges and nurtures the thought process and provides the necessary hands-on experience in design. There is increasing convergence in opinions that problem-based and experiential learning should be more integrated with the science-based engineering programs. Experiential learning is the key to engaging students to learn effectively. This paper describes an experiential learning experience for a group of undergraduate students in National University of Singapore (NUS) to design a competition fuel efficient vehicle. The students started with engineering design process and went through a series of steps to design, manufacture, assemble, test and compete in a specifically built prototype urban concept car for the competition with the experiential learning experience. Components of the competition vehicle, from chassis to diminutive parts, such as wheel uprights and motor mounts, have been carefully designed, properly analyzed and fabricated in a teamwork environment. The result is a futuristic fuel efficient urban concept car that won many awards in the competition. The team also took the initiative to promote eco-friendliness and raise awareness with the design of fuel efficient car to battle environmental issues like climate change, pollution, and energy crisis.

MODELING AN ABBREVIATED PRODUCT DESIGN CYCLE IN A FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN COURSE

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Kristine Sheridan ◽  
Jason A Foster ◽  
Geoffrey S Frost
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Praxis Ii ◽  
Engineering Communication ◽  
Detail Design ◽  
Praxis I ◽  
Design Experience

All Engineering Science students at the University of Toronto take the cornerstone Praxis Sequence of engineering design courses. In the first course in the sequence, Praxis I, students practice three types of engineering design across three distinct design projects. Previously the final design project had the students first frame and then develop conceptual design solutions for a self-identified challenge. While this project succeeded in providing an appropriate foundational design experience, it failed to fully prepare students for the more complex design experience in Praxis II. The project also failed to ingrain the need for clear and concise engineering communication, and the students’ lack of understanding of detail design inhibited their ability to make practical and realistic design decisions. A revised Product Design project in Praxis I was designed with the primary aims of: (a) pushing students beyond the conceptual design phase of the design process, and (b) simulating a real-world work environment by: (i) increasing the interdependence between student teams and (ii) increasing the students’ perceived value of engineering communication.

A comparative study of formal coaching and mentoring programmes in higher education

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Jones ◽  
Helen A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Business School ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Practice Recommendations ◽  
Matching Process ◽  
Two Phases

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate two coaching and mentoring programmes focused on the ever-increasingly important aim of enhancing the chances of professional level employment for undergraduate students, at two UK universities. In addition, to offer recommendations to enhance coaching and mentoring success within higher education (HE).Design/methodology/approachTwo similar programmes are compared; the first study is a coaching programme delivered in two phases involving over 1,500 students within the business school. The second study is a mentoring programme involving over 250 students over a ten-year period within the business school at a different institution.FindingsThe two programmes have been compared against the key success criteria from the literature, endorsed by coaching and mentoring experts. The results highlight the importance of integrating with other initiatives, senior management commitment, budget, an application process, clear matching process, trained coaches and mentors, induction for both parties, supportive material, ongoing supervision and robust evaluation and record keeping.Research limitations/implicationsThe research focuses on two similar institutions, with comparable student demographics. It would have been useful to dig deeper into the effect of the diverse characteristics of coach/mentor and coachee/mentee on the effectiveness of their relationships. In addition, to test the assumptions and recommendations beyond these two institutions, and to validate the reach and application of these best practice recommendations further afield.Practical implicationsThe results identify a number of best practice recommendations to guide HE institutions when offering coaching and mentoring interventions to support career progression of their students.Originality/valueThere are limited comparison studies between universities with undergraduate career-related coaching and mentoring programmes and limited research offering best practice recommendations for coaching and mentoring programmes in HE. The top ten factors offered here to take away will add value to those thinking of running similar programmes within HE.

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