Learning Design through the Lens of Service: A Qualitative Study

Twenty-four senior-level capstone engineering design projects were completed at a large, public, primarily undergraduate university involving 85 students (70 male and 15 female). All projects involved the design of equipment to facilitate physical activity for people with disabilities. The effects on: i) learning design, ii) attitude towards people with disabilities, iii) motivation to complete team design projects and iv) interdisciplinary collaboration were analyzed through 24 one-hour focus groups. We explored the student experience using a constructivist approach and grounded theory. Four major themes (with associated sub-themes) emerged from our data analysis: learning design (project management, iterative design process, and user-centered design), motivation to complete design (engineering, disabilities, user), perceptions of people with disabilities (previous experience, changed attitudes and beliefs), and multidisciplinary collaboration (etiquette presentation, communication between disciplines, defining roles and expectations). Students completing these projects were shown to appreciate user-centered design, exhibit greater motivation when able to meet and develop a relationship with their client in person, discuss altruistic factors regarding their capstone experience, and were able to develop strong multidisciplinary skills

An Analysis of the Reflection Component in the EPICS Model of Service Learning

Service learning is a pedagogy providing a structured environment for students to link service with course learning objectives. Key to the service learning experience is critical reflection. This gives students the opportunity to examine their coursework in the context of the service they provide to their community and, in a broader sense, the impact they can have on the world. Research has shown that students participating in service learning have a higher comprehension of the course material and also develop an awareness of their local community and the issues it faces. In engineering, there are many examples of service-learning programs ranging from freshman introductory courses to senior capstone courses. Despite their successes, an area that the engineering education community has yet to fully develop is the reflection component of service learning. This paper addresses the development of reflection activities and materials in the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program at Purdue University. EPICS engages students in long-term design projects that provide technical solutions to problems faced by local community service organizations. It is a multidisciplinary (composed of students from 20 majors), vertically integrated (freshman-senior), engineering-based design course. Students design, build, test, and deploy projects meeting the specific needs of their community partners. Reflection has been integrated in the EPICS program through curricular activities and key milestones of the course. These activities guide students through the reflection process on a variety of topics. Critical reflection on the design process and teaming complement those on more traditional areas of ethics and social context to enhance a student\u27s service learning experience. This paper presents an overview of the reflection activities that have been developed, interpretations of student reflections from these activities, and plans to evolve the reflection component in EPICS

Multidisciplinary Experiences for Undergraduate Engineering Students

Multidisciplinary (MD) team skills are of increasing importance in industry, and are required for programs that are ABET accredited. This can be challenging to provide, particularly for programs with high unit counts and a large student body. We have responded by establishing a multidisciplinary graduation requirement across the College of Engineering at Cal Poly. This requirement is mandatory. It may be satisfied by various curricular and co-curricular routes, easing throughput issues compared to having a single venue. In the paper we describe activities that satisfy the MD requirement, our general approach and assessment methods

A Real-Time Sitting Posture Tracking System

As cornputing becomes more ubiquitous, there is a need for distributed intelligent humancomputer interfaces that can perceive and interpret a user\u27s actions through sensors that see, hear and feel. A perceptually intelligent interface enables a more natural interaction between a user ancl a machine in the sense that the user can look at, talk to or touch an object instead of using a, machine language. Although research on haptic (i.e., touch-based) interfaces has received less attention in the past as compared to that on visual and auditory interfaces, it is emerging as a new interdisciplinary field that holds much promise for the future. The goal of the sensing chair project is to enable a computer to track., in real time, the sitting pclstures of a user through the use of surface-mounted contact sensors. Given the similarity between a pressure distribution map from the contact sensors and a gray-level image, we propose to adapt computer vision and paktern recognition algorithms for the analysis of sitting pressure daka,. Work in three areas are proposed: (1) data collection for a sitting pressure distribution database, (2) development of a real-time sitting posture tracking system, and (3) performance evaluation of the tracking system. The realization of a robust, real-time tracking system will lead to many exciting applications such as automatic control of airbag deployment forces, ergonomics of furniture design, and biometl-ic authentication for computer security

Curricular Enhancement to Support Project-Based Learning in Computer and Electrical Engineering

Undergraduate computer and electrical engineering programs often partition the curriculum into several courses based on related topics taught in isolation. Students are expected to synthesize their knowledge in a senior design project. It is the authors’ experience that students often struggle during their senior design project since they have not gained the appropriate knowledge or mastered necessary skills needed to work on a significant or team-based engineering design project. Specifically, students need to be able to define system requirements, partition the design into subcomponents, design, build, test, and verify that the system requirements have been met. The authors have enhanced and implemented three courses to develop system engineering knowledge and skills that better prepare students for their senior design experience. This paper gives an overview and lists the learning outcomes for each of these courses and includes some examples of laboratory projects that are used to meet these learning outcomes

Work in Progress - Enhancing Student-Learning Through State-of-The-Art Systems Level Design and Implementation

The curriculum for undergraduate engineering programs is often partitioned into several courses that are taught in isolation followed by a single culminating senior design or capstone project experience. In the senior design class students being to synthesize the knowledge and skills that they acquired through the engineering curriculum. This paper presents lower and upper division course and curricular changes made to accommodate learning objectives that better prepare students for project-based learning. These learning experiences and skills include: systems level design, experience with state-of-the-art Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools, printed circuit board (PBC) design, design for manufacturability, electronics assembly, project management, engineering ethics, and communication skills. Three upper division project based learning courses have been developed and are being offered this year. In addition, the development of laboratory tutorials and learning modules for the lower division engineering curriculum will introduce all engineering majors to current electronic manufacturing technology, and allow them to design electronic manufacturing technology, and allow them to design electronic systems using PCBs. The courses and tutorial learning modules are currently being classroom tested and assessed

Capstone Experiences: Effects of Adapted Physical Activity Design Projects on Attitudes and Learning

Eight innovative senior level capstone engineering projects were completed at California Polytechnic State University (2008-present) involving (n=28) students (23 male/5 female). All projects involved the design of equipment to facilitate physical activity for people with disabilities. The effects on: i) learning design, ii) attitude towards people with disabilities, and iii) motivation to complete team design projects were analyzed through eight one-hour focus groups. This paper presents focus group findings using a constructivist approach and grounded theory to explore the overall student “learn by doing” experience. Results: (1) Approximately 19 (70%) of the students claimed the adapted physical activity project was their “first choice” given 60+ projects to rank; (2) Prior to the project only ten (35%) had experience working with people with disabilities and of those students the majority were women; (3) Twenty-six (92.8%) of the students were able to define ‘inclusion’ when asked and viewed the field of engineering as a ‘natural fit’ with project design for adapted physical activity. Students reported high levels of motivation for learning design as evidenced by the majority of engineers getting their “top” choice of projects; (4) Twenty-three (82%) of the engineers would ‘definitely’ consider a future engineering job in this sector and (5) Project challenges included: budget constraints, group communication, fabrication delays, detachment from client, and a desire for increased product testing time. Although students reported high levels of learning and motivation to complete their project; attitudes toward people with disabilities did not change significantly