This paper will present the philosophy and describe the lessons learned from the author's fifteen years of experience in developing semester-long, team, design, build, and test projects appropriate for an introductory engineering design course. The topics covered will be: project expectations, the content and organization of the course, the issues associated with the project, examples of project statements and student solutions, a list of the "DO's" and "DO NOT's" for project conception, development, expectations, management and evaluation. Specific issues that will be addressed are: team formation, team size, team mentoring, varying skill levels between teams, spreading the "pain", discouraging last minute construction, grading methodology, reporting requirements, design for assembly, monitoring, and project selection/development. Issues related to project selection/development are safety, compete against the clock not each other, limited operator participations, expectations, design testing and evaluation, and esthetics. Student feedback is presented on whether project outcomes were satisfied and their feelings about working in teams and competing.
Volume Subject Area:
Mechanical Engineering Education
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