Making it for real: Redesign of a First-Year Engineering Project

Abstract

This Research to Practice work-in-progress paper presents the development and initial implementation of a project assigned to first-year students in an Introduction to Engineering Design course at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. Traditionally, students learn about the engineering design process through design-only projects such as redesigning an electric toothbrush or selecting components for a renewable-energy powered water well. Although these projects were hands-on, they did not include students converting the design concept to a tangible product. In fall 2017, a new project using Arduino kits was introduced to the course. Students were asked to build a line-following robot car with a chassis of their own design as long as it kept the wires and circuit board inside. In designing the robot car, students sketched design concepts, selected the best one, and used low-fidelity materials to create beta prototypes. Once they had a working chassis, students created it in Autodesk Inventor and realized the final design of the chassis through 3D printing and laser cutting.To measure if the new hands-on project has an impact on student learning, students were asked to report which instructional activity they learn best from and how they relate engineering design to real life before and after the project. We found that at the completion of the robot car project, students became less in favor of lecture-based instructions. Rather, they have developed a preference in figuring out the solutions on their own. Students highly appreciated the open-ended design project and the hands-on experience of building a prototype.As with any project carried out for the first time, the robot car design project ran into some technical difficulties. Nonetheless, students reported that this hands-on project is fun and rewarding, and they now have a much deeper understanding of the engineering design process behind every product in the market. This paper discusses the student design project in detail, including the results of the project based off of student surveys and faculty observations, and suggestions for improvement and implementation at other schools.