scholarly journals Preparing and Coordinating Undergraduate Engineering Design Projects

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Carrick ◽  
Aleksander Czekanski
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Design Projects

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.

How to Recognize an Immutable Mobile When You Find One

2012 ◽  
pp. 92-106
Author(s):  
Fernando Abreu Gonçalves ◽  
José Figueiredo
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Project Design ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Constructive Process ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Actor Networks

Research involved with Actor-Network Theory (ANT) application in engineering domains often crosses through its fundamentals. In fact, exploring trends that envisage ANT as a paradigm that can prove valid in the engineering design field, researchers sometimes enrol in discussions that drive them to its roots. Obligatory Passage Points (OPP) and Immutable Mobiles (IM) are two of the fundamental concepts that need to be revisited. These concepts are critical to understanding innovation in Actor-Networks, especially for the part of IMs. In the pursuit of that understanding, the authors opt to entangle ANT and engineering design and explore a framework based on Programs of Action where actors are represented as taxonomies of competences. These actors are hybrids but, when human, they are mainly engineers engaged in the scope planning and resource management in engineering design projects or processes. This article exercises and develops a constructive process towards a methodology to approach innovation in engineering design. This research is useful for the first stages of the project design process and, in a broader way, to the full cycle of the engineering design process.

Engineering Innovative Practice in Managing Design Projects

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Fernando Abreu Gonçalves ◽  
José Figueiredo
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Value Management ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Earned Value ◽  
Earned Value Management ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Scope Management ◽  
Perturbation Index

Most references to innovation relate to the development of new products. This paper does not address innovation in these terms, but as changes in practices an engineer creatively adopts during engineering design projects. The authors adopt Actor-Network Theory as a way to understand these change processes (translations). The authors design a perturbation index inspired in Earned Value management to measure translation effort having in mind the management of scope. The paper then assesses changes of regime in resource allocation of tasks and concludes some changes that can lead to innovative results. That means a wider view about scope, and scope management is gained, being able to observe and change good practices, something crucial in engineering design projects where requirements and goals drift.

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