scholarly journals Arduino-based Sensor Device – An Engineering Physics Second-year Design Project within the Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS) of the Queen’s Engineering Professional Spine

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Knobel ◽  
Mark Chen ◽  
Lynann Clapham
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Formal Instruction ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Practice Sequence ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Design And Practice ◽  
Formal Design ◽  
Engineering Physics

In 2011, Queen’s Engineering began rollout of its "Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS)". The EDPS is a "professional spine" sequence of courses over four years, meant to address and incorporate into all of its engineering programs the majority of the 12 Graduate attributes required by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). In year 1, the first EDPS course – Engineering Practice I - introduces students to engineering design and problem solving, but with little formal instruction in the design process and engineering tools. Formal instruction in these aspects comes in second year, in Engineering Design and Practice II (course number APSC200). Finally, in third and fourth year, students undertake significant design projects in their discipline. The second-year version of the professional spine, APSC200, is a one-term course taken by all students. This begins with a 6-week Faculty-wide course module, followed by a 6-week program-specific module. In the first Faculty-wide segment, students learn the design process – problem definition and scope, idea generation and broadening tools, decision-making tools, economic analysis, stakeholders, risk, and safety. Students are exposed to the necessity of formal design techniques via a zero-level "P0" project, and taught these techniques during a more extensive P1 project. The second 6 weeks of APSC200 involves a discipline-specific project (P2) in which the student teams practice the skills introduced in the earlier portion of the course while working through a design project chosen to emphasize the skills of their program. This paper focusses on the development and implementation of the P2 project for students in the Queen’s Engineering Physics program. The goal of this project is to introduce discipline-specific tools and techniques, to excite students in their chosen engineering discipline, and to put into practice the formal design techniques introduced earlier. The P2 project developed for Engineering Physics was entitled a "Compact Environmental Monitoring Station". The premise was that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) issued an RFP for small, cheap sensor devices that could be provided to every Ontario household, and set up to "crowdsource" environmental data for the MOE. Student teams were required to research and justify which environmental parameters would be appropriate for their monitoring device, decide on parameters to monitor, design the device, and build a working prototype of the device. The device specifications required the use of an Arduino-based platform, interfacing the chosen sensor(s) to a laptop computer using MatLab. Since only some students were familiar with Arduinos and MatLab, two "just in time" workshops were delivered on these topics, using a "flipped lab" approach. For the prototype design and build, students had only 4 weeks and a budget of $100. Arduino boards and some basic sensors were supplied, with students able to source and purchase other components within their budget. The prototype-build provided the students with a valuable hands-on experience and also helped them to fully appreciate unexpected practical design constraints. Given the short timeframe (4-weeks) for the design and build, prototypes were very impressive, with many including solar power or rechargeable batteries, Bluetooth connectivity, 3-D printed packaging, IPhone or Android apps, as well as calibration functions. This paper will summarize the development of this Engineering Physics P2 module, and will report on the first year of offering it in its current format.  

scholarly journals A NOVEL FACULTY-WIDE APPROACH TO TEACHING SECOND YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S Strong ◽  
Brian Frank
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Instructional Material ◽  
Learning Objectives ◽  
Engineering Programs ◽  
Course Structure ◽  
Hybrid Delivery ◽  
Practice Sequence ◽  
Second Year ◽  
The One ◽  
Design And Practice

In the 2011-2012 academic year Queen’s University introduced a new second year faculty-wide design course as part of its initiative to create a four year Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS) in all engineering programs. This paper discusses the structure, delivery, results, and feedback on the first offering of the second year EPDS course. Based on learning objectives developed by a faculty-wide curriculum committee, the one-term course was designed with a novel hybrid delivery process. The structure incorporates common instructional material and integrated projects across all departments during the first half of the course, and continues with discipline-oriented projects to enhance and reinforce the overall learning objectives through the latter half. Over 600 second year students from the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science were enrolled, and more than a dozen instructors and 34 teaching assistants were involved in the course delivery over both academic terms. Details of the course structure, examples of instructional material and projects, and feedback from all representative parties are discussed.

scholarly journals Designing Rubrics to Assess Engineering Design, Professional Practice, and Communication Over Three Years of Study

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Lanziner ◽  
David Strong
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Specific Feedback ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Rubric Development ◽  
Process Elements ◽  
Major Consideration

When using rubric-based assessment of students’ understanding of design process in project based courses, it is important to provide specific feedback for major design process elements while avoiding overly prescriptive descriptors [8]. This paper details the development process of a sequence of rubrics used for assessment in successive second, third and fourth year project-based courses. A major consideration in the rubric development process was to ensure the alignment of assessment with course learning outcomes that can be easily mapped to the CEAB graduate attribute accreditation requirements. In the second year course, the rubrics are used to provide students with directed feedback as they learn the basics of engineering design process. The third and fourth year rubrics progress from the second year analytic rubrics by employing elements of holistic assessment. The purpose of evolving these rubrics year over year is to find a balance between the students’ learning and development in design process whilst accommodating variation in projects. This ultimatelyprovides students with greater flexibility and encourages responsibility as they progress through their program.

scholarly journals Self-Regulation Strategies in an Engineering Design Project

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oenardi Lawanto ◽  
Andreas Febrian ◽  
Deborah Butler ◽  
Mani Mina
Keyword(s):  
Project Management ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Task Interpretation

Models of self-regulation describe how individuals engage deliberately and reflectively in goal-directed action in order to achieve valued goals. Studies have found that the consistent use of self-regulation in an academic setting is highly correlated with student achievement. Self-regulation plays a critical role in problem-solving, particularly when unraveling ill-structured problems as is required in engineering design. The primary research question: How did engineering students perceive their self-regulation activities while engaged in a design project? A total of 307 students from three higher education institutions working on their capstone engineering design projects participated in the study. The study evaluated students’ self-regulation in relation to both design and project management skills. We used a self-regulation in engineering design questionnaire (EDMQ) to assess students’ approaches to self-regulation. Quantitative data were analyzed in two parts using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings suggested that: (1) Students focused more consistently on task interpretation than other self-regulatory strategies, particularly during design; (2) Students lacked awareness of the essential need to develop a method to assess the design deliverables; (3) Self-regulation gaps were found during early design phases, but as the design process progressed, a more balanced approach to self-regulation was apparent. Given the importance of task interpretation to successful performance, students attended to identifying tasks during both the design process and project management. However, they did not report engaging in planning, implementing, and monitoring and fix-up strategies as consistently, even when those processes were relevant and called for. Implications are drawn for research, theory, and practice.

Integration of a Client-Based Design Project Into the Sophomore Year

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn K. S. Nagel ◽  
Robert L. Nagel ◽  
Eric Pappas ◽  
Olga Pierrakos
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Real World ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Course Sequence ◽  
Two Phases

Often engineering design instruction based on real-world, client-based projects is relegated to a final year capstone course. The engineering program at James Madison University (JMU), however, emphasizes these real-world, client-based design experiences, and places them throughout our six-course engineering design sequence. Our six-course design sequence is anchored by the sophomore design course sequence, which serves as the cornerstone to the JMU engineering design sequence. The cornerstone experience in the sophomore year is meant to enable mastery through both directed and non-directed learning and exploration of the design process and design tools. To that end, students work in both small (4–5) and large (9–11) teams to complete a year-long design project. The course project is woven with instruction in engineering design theory and methodology; individual cognitive processes, thinking, and communication skills; decision making; sustainable design; problem solving; software; and project management. Students’ overarching task during the first semester is to follow the first two phases of the engineering design process—Planning and Concept Generation—while in the second semester, students work to reiterate on the first two phases of the engineering design process before prototyping, testing, and refining a design for the client. The project culminates with the students demonstrating their final product to the client, University, and local community. Our goal in this paper is to present our model for integrating real-world, client-based design projects into the sophomore year to facilitate meaningful design experiences across the curriculum. We believe that providing these experiences early and often not only challenges students on multiple dimensions, but also exposes them, and consequently better prepares them, for their eventual role as a practicing engineer. In this paper, we shall describe the sophomore design course sequence, the history and details of the course project, and also key learning outcome gains.

scholarly journals A Tool for Systematically Accessing the Level of Readiness of Engineering Design in Product Development

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Behdinan ◽  
M. Fahimian ◽  
R. Pop-Iliev
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Technical Point ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Engineering Approach ◽  
Readiness Level

 Abstract – This paper introduces a top down, system-engineering approach to develop a quantifiable and systematic tool, referred to as Design Readiness Level (DRL), to gauge design at each stage of product development. It is developed to facilitate communication between different stockholders of a design project and to address the complexities arising during all the phases of product design, from initiation to completion. The design process as one of the pillars of DRL has been studied thoroughly and is categorized into nine stages to reflect the technical flow in product development. The design stages are iterative at any level from 1 to 9 and have distinctive deliverables at the end of each stage. The deliverables simplify and characterize the assessment of the design from the technical point of view. Developing a comprehensive DRL metrics that encompasses all the stockholders’ perspectives in a design is a work in progress.

scholarly journals AN INQUIRY AND BLENDED LEARNING MODULE FOR SENIOR ENGINEERING DESIGN

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Eggermont ◽  
T. Frieheit ◽  
F. Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
First Year ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Mind Maps ◽  
Teaching Modules ◽  
Main Message

University of Calgary delivers a full-year “Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Design Methodology and Application” course where students gain basic design methodology knowledge and associated skills through lectures and tutorials. The primary “vehicle” used for student experiential learning is a team-based, open-ended design project. The problem often encountered is that students fail to see “the forest for the trees”. More specifically, they often fail to see how the design process applies to their project and potentially miss the main message of the course. This paper proposes a short inquiry based learning exercise, augmented with web-based teaching modules, to more effectively prepare students for the “application” aspect of the course. Student teams will experience the full design methodology through a compressed “mini-project” at the beginning of the term, before they have any preconceived notions about the design process. Mind-mapping has been identified as the e-learning tool to organize this mini-project. A pilot project testing the use of mind-maps was conducted in a first year design course, exploring issues related to its implementation.

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 The Professional Spine: Creation of a Four-year Engineering Design and Practice Sequence

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Frank ◽  
David Strong ◽  
Rick Sellens
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
First Year ◽  
Problem Analysis ◽  
Assessment And Evaluation ◽  
Practice Sequence ◽  
Design And Practice ◽  
First Time ◽  
Academic Year

This paper discusses the development of a four-year Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS) of project-based courses at Queen’s University. The four-year sequence is a core requirement for all engineering students, and will develop competence in design process methods and tools, problem analysis, creativity, economics and entrepreneurship, engineering communications, professionalism, and ethics. The EDPS was designed to meet requirements of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board graduate attributes , which addresses requirements of the Washington Accord. They also target applicable elements of the CDIO syllabus. The EDPS is being delivered to first year engineering students for the first time in the 2010-2011 academic year and will continue rolling out over the next three years. The paper discusses the process involved in creating the sequence, the course objectives and delivery for each year of the program, and proposed assessment and evaluation methods. The sequence will also be compared to previously published engineering design and practice sequences. The outcomes of the first year, including student feedback and attribute assessment, will also be discussed. Upper year students who will not experience the engineering design and practice sequence are being assessed on their understanding of design methods to provide baseline data for comparison with students who progress through the sequence in future years.This paper was also published in the ASEE 2011 Annual General Conference with joint permission of ASEE and CEEA.

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