Makerspaces in Engineering Education: A Case Study

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lasse Skovgaard Jensen ◽  
Ali Gürcan Özkil ◽  
Krestine Mougaard
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Maker Movement ◽  
Development Education ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Support Engineering ◽  
New Generation

The recent years have witnessed a new generation of Makers working with new ways of knowledge generation for creation and sharing of digital and physical products. While this development has started within collaborative and grass roots organised networks; educational institutions have also embraced it by opening makerspaces and adopting elements of the Maker Movement in their offerings. This paper investigates how university driven makerspaces can affect engineering design and product development education trough a case study. We provide our findings based on interviews and data collected from educators, students the administrative and workshop staff of the makerspace. The findings are used to outline the challenges in incorporating the offerings of makerspaces. By discussing these challenges we identify opportunities for turning university makerspaces into innovation hubs and platforms that can support engineering design education.

AN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING APPROACH FOR DEVELOPING MENTAL MODELS IN ENGINEERING DESIGN EDUCATION

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Li ◽  
C. Chua
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Support Engineering ◽  
Prior Experiences

Mental simulation represents how a person interprets and understands the causal relations associated with the perceived information, and it is considered an important cognitive device to support engineering design activities. Mental models are considered information characterized in a person’s mind to understand the external world. They are important components to support effective mental simulation. This paper begins with a discussion on the experiential learning approach and how it supports learners in developing mental models for design activities. Following that, the paper looks at the four types of mental models: object, making, analysis and project, and illustrates how they capture different aspects and skills of design activities. Finally, the paper proposes an alternative framework, i.e., Spiral Learning Approach, which is an integration of Kolb’s experiential learningcycle and the Imaginative Education (IE) framework. While the Kolb’s cycle informs a pattern to leverage personal experiences to reusable knowledge, the IE’s framework suggests how prior experiences can trigger imagination and advance understandings. A hypothetical design of a snow removal device is used to illustrate the ideas of design-related mental models and the spirallearning approach.

scholarly journals The Analysis of three Case Studies as a guide to the Development of Pedagogy in Engineering Design Education

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Burns
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Engineering Product ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Dynamic Formulation

The Case Study has become a pedagogical vehicle ofchoice in helping engineering students to gain perspective on the multidisciplinary realities of design. What once were termed ‘war stories’ have evolved to a level where case studies are available and downloadable on all manner of topics. For the fundamental knowledge-based issues of engineering, example questions have commonly been created to help the student manoeuvre through all manner of possible combinations of application. The case study is not however fabricated, and relies on the reporting and documentation of a real design or engineering product development. In recent years many of these case studies have been related to ethics and communication, but very few have been related to ongoing product development and issues of Industrial Design. This is not surprising since the creation of such case studies is time consuming, and design is often a ‘messy’ process in which few companies would be keen to expose their failures along the way. Nevertheless case studies are a vital part of Engineering Design education and offer excellent potential for the development of the pedagogy vital to the dynamic formulation of Engineering Design Education. This paper references three design projects undertaken professionally by the author as an Industrial Designer working with predominantly engineering based companies. The aim is to identify critical aspects of these projects that could be used as lessons, perhaps, but not necessarily, as case studies, but to be incorporated into engineering design education.

scholarly journals Semantics for Digital Engineering Archives Supporting Engineering Design Education

AI Magazine ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Regli ◽  
Joseph B. Kopena ◽  
Michael Grauer ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson ◽  
Robert B. Stone ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Engineering Information ◽  
Semantic Techniques ◽  
Data Elements ◽  
Support Engineering ◽  
Representation Techniques ◽  
Digital Engineering

This article introduces the challenge of digital preservation in the area of engineering design and manufacturing and presents a methodology to apply knowledge representation and semantic techniques to develop Digital Engineering Archives. This work is part of an ongoing, multiuniversity, effort to create cyber infrastructure-based engineering repositories for undergraduates (CIBER-U) to support engineering design education. The technical approach is to use knowledge representation techniques to create formal models of engineering data elements, workflows and processes. With these formal engineering knowledge and processes can be captured and preserved with some guarantee of long-term interpretability. The article presents examples of how the techniques can be used to encode specific engineering information packages and workflows. These techniques are being integrated into a semantic wiki that supports the CIBER-U engineering education activities across nine universities and involving over 3500 students since 2006.

Creativity and the Use of CAD Tools: Lessons for Engineering Design Education From Industry

2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (7) ◽  
pp. 753-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett F. Robertson ◽  
Joachim Walther ◽  
David F. Radcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Cad Tools ◽  
Targeted Instruction ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
The One

This paper presents an exploratory study that transfers lessons on creativity and the use of CAD tools from an industry case study to engineering design education. The participant-observation case study found four influences of the use of CAD on creativity of designers. The one positive and three negative effects were confirmed by a theoretical investigation of creative problem solving in engineering design. Similar effects were also seen in the context of engineering education in a study that examined the broad, holistic aspects of student learning outside the paradigm of targeted instruction. The paper is based on the notion that students' creative design capabilities are formed through the interaction of CAD instruction and other factors from the wider educational environment. A competence formation matrix based on the concept of Accidental Competence formation was developed to analyze this combination of the effects of CAD usage with other educational factors. The analysis shows that these combinations have long-term positive and negative effects on the development of creative abilities in engineering students.

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