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Redesign of a Toy Project for First Year Engineering Courses |
| Published in: | Engineering for a Smarter Planet: Innovation, ITC, and Computational Tools for Sustainable Development: Proceedings of the 9th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology |  |
| Date of Conference: | August 3-5, 2011 |
| Location of Conference: | Medellin, Colombia |
| Authors: | Ivan Esparragoza
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| Refereed Paper: | #37 |
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Abstract |
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Many students decide to study engineering because they like to design and build things or they like the hands-on
work. However, most of the engineering programs devote the first two years of the engineering curriculum to
theoretical foundations in math and science with little or no connection with the engineering majors. As a result, a
big number of students are stepping out of engineering due to a lack of design and hands on experience during the
first two years. This paper reports the implementation of a redesign project in two freshman engineering courses.
The purpose of this project is not only to introduce the design process and professional skills such as teamwork
and communication among others, but also to serve as a means to connect the students with the engineering field
from the very beginning and motivate them to stay in a technical career.
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