Semester-long, team design projects are supposed to fun but can appear daunting to beginning engineering students, especially if they don’t know anyone else in the class. This paper discusses how the “daunting” aspect of early design projects has been addressed in a sophomore design course in a BSME program. The issue is addressed from three viewpoints: student diversity, project formulation, and support from the other activities in the class. A sample project is discussed in detail. A survey at the end of the semester indicted that the students enjoyed the class (averaging over 4.5 on the usual five-point Likert scale for four statements about the course), learned (averaging 4.18 supporting improved abilities related to seven ABET criterion 3 issues) and also strongly supported a series of statements about other learning issues.

Volume Subject Area:
Mechanical Engineering Education
Keywords:
Design, Diversity, Education, Teams
Topics:
Design, Students, Teams
1.
U.S. News and World Report. “America’s Best Colleges 2004: National Universities, Doctoral Campus Diversity.” U.S. News and World Report. http://www.usnews.com./usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/natudoc/natudoc_campdiv_brief.php. (last accessed 3 May 2005).
2.
Richard Bannerot. “Characteristics of Good Team Players.” Proceedings of the 2004 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. June 20–23, 2004. Salt Lake City, UT available on the conference CD and posted at http://www.asce.org/acpapers/2004–1105.Final.pdf.
3.
Richard Bannerot. “Characteristics of Good Teams.” Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. June 12–15, 2005, Portland, OR, available on the conference CD and posted at http://www. asee.org/acpapers/2005–1336.Final.pdf.
4.
Richard Bannerot, “Specifications for Open-Ended Problems,” Proceedings of the 2001 Annual Conference of the ASEE Gulf Southwest Section, March 28–30, 2001. College Station, Texas, on CD.
5.
David Keirsey and Marikyn Bates. Please Understand Me, Prometheus Nemesis Book Company, Del Mar, CA, 1984.
This content is only available via PDF.
Copyright © 2005
 by ASME
You do not currently have access to this content.