First Year Introductory Courses in Engineering Education Programs

1
First Year Introductory Courses in Engineering
Education Programs External Review Sven
Stafström 18 June 2003
2
OUTLINE

• Motivation and approach
• LiU example
• Impact at LiU
• Impact at other universities

3
MOTIVATION

• Background Surveys have shown that students
  lack experience in professional skills such as
  project management, teamwork, and communication.
  The first year students also have a very vague
  idea about the engineering profession.
• Approach Introduce a new course (or adapt
  existing course) that specifically addresses
  these issues for first year students.

4
APPROACH

• Create a first year introductory course that
  incorporates
• Hands-on engineering experience.
• The use of a project model allows for direct
  assessment specified goals gt delivery.
• Education in essential CDIO skills (teamwork,
  communication etc.)
• Assessment in many steps milestones, written
  report, oral presentation at the project
  conference, and reflections on team work.

5
THE LiU EXAMPLE
Engineering Projects (6 ECTS credit units)
Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering
Program (Y)

• Lectures (14h)
• Project work (100h/student)
• The project work follows a model for project
  management (LIPS)

28 teams, with 5-6 students per team 10 project
tasks, 2-3 teams work independently on the same
task
6
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Relate basic concepts in physics and electronics
  to engineering work. Motivation for future
  studies.
• Develop an understanding of what engineering is
  all about and how engineering work is performed.
• Administration, planning, communication,
  documentation, and presentation of project work.
• Contribute as a team member.

7
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING

• Project work is characterized by
• Leadership by an appointed person
• Parallel work
• Broad insight (creates enthusiasm)
• Measurable goals
• Project management
• Can these ideas be transferred to the teaching
  situation?
• Challenges
• Find interesting program specific projects.
• Large and changing group of teachers.
• Introduce people in academia to project
  management.

8
COURSE PREPARATION OVERVIEW
Project management LIPS
Documents homepage
LIPS course
Define course content
Project calls
Project conference
Organization
Project work
CDIO initiative
Lectures
Evaluation
9
ORGANIZATION

• Personnel
• Examiner
• Project manager (customer), 1 per project
• Supervisor, 1 per student team
• Project leader (coordinator)
• Responsible for documentation
• Responsible for technical subsystem 1
• Responsible for technical subsystem 2
• Etc.

The student project team
10
THE LIPS PROJECT MODEL
After
During
Before
11
LECTURES

• Introduction.
• Project management, the LIPS model.
• Group dynamics, communication, history of the
  engineering profession.
• Industrial perspectives project work, group
  dynamics, communication.

12
PROJECTS EXAMPLES

• Environmental design of an electronics product
  the design should consider both technical and
  marketing aspects.
• Detection of objects in motion from a film
  sequence a camera on an unmanned (moving)
  helicopter generates a film sequence. This
  project should result in an algorithm which,
  based on the information on the film can detect
  the motion of objects seen by the camera.
• Smart Car using LEGO mindstorms and various
  types of sensors, build a vehicle that can
  maneuver autonomously from position A to position
  B and along the path avoid various types of
  obstacles.
• Weather station build a weather station with
  temperature and wind sensors and process and
  present the data electronically.
• For more detailed information see
  http//www.ifm.liu.se/courses/tfyy51.html

13
PROJECT WORK
Project description
Project specifications and goals (LIPS format)
Project plan (LIPS format) list of
activities time manager
decision point 1
Project work parallel work on technical
sub- systems, team meetings (2 h/week)
reports, 2 milestones
decision points 2
Delivery demonstration report
decision point 4, examination
Project conference Evaluation QM, reflection
document
Assessment of skills related to the learning
objectives.
14
IMPACT AT LiU
The course was awarded the Y-program Diplom,
2003 motivation has with great enthusiasm and
efforts created the course Engineering projects
which has contributed an improved education the
course was received with joy and enthusiasm by
the students

• Among other things (e.g., knowledge in project
  management) LIPS has provided a method for
  assessment (specifications of goals gt delivery).

15
REFLECTIONS

• Improvement continuous renewal/replacement of
  projects.
• Expansion Other engineering programs will be
  encouraged to start 1st year introductory
  courses.
• Consideration renewal/replacement of projects
  requires LIPS education for new supervisors.

16
IMPACT AT OTHER UNIVERSITES

• Chalmers, Introduction to Mechanical Engineering,
  160 students. Course has been expanded to include
  building of projects.
• KTH, Perspectives on Vehicle Engineering, 120
  students. Course has been expanded to include
  design-build projects.
• MIT, Introduction to Aerospace Engineering and
  Design, 60 students. Development of existing
  course to reflect CDIO model.

17
BENEFIT OF THE CDIO INITIATIVE

• The CDIO initiative has contributed with
• A network of collaborators, which among other
  things has resulted in publications
• G. Gustafsson, D. J. Newman, S. Stafström, and
  H. P. Wallin, First-year introductory courses as
  a means to develop conceive design implement
  operate skills in engineering education
  programmes, 30th SEFI Annual Conference, "The
  Renaissance Engineer of Tomorrow", Florence,
  Italy, 8-11 September 2002.
• Good examples
• Financing!