A unified first-year engineering design-based learning course

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative engineering design of a first-year engineering course. The course is offered in the second semester of the academic year to students of different engineering disciplines such as mechanical, mechatronic, electrical, electronics, civil, environmental and manufacturing. The course incorporates a mix of techniques to help students better engage with the subject matter and with one another. A major part of the new course is the practical assessment component requiring students to apply physical, mathematical, mechanical and electrical concepts to real life engineering design problems. Three different engineering design modules were developed. Each module consists of an authentic engineering design problem which has been specially constructed in order to provide students with the opportunity to apply the basic engineering, maths and physics concepts they acquired during the first semester. Depending on the students intended engineering major, they choose one of the three engineering design modules. In order to best prepare students for the design project, they firstly do two small group assignment tasks on a particular engineering problem. This serves as the preparatory work for the engineering design module. The assignments are done in class time so as to promote full collaboration between students and instructors and to encourage the exchange of knowledge and ideas. The course aims to better equip students with workforce skills in problem solving and effective oral and written communication.