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Final Paper
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Engineering design is valued across all engineering programs and is typically project-orientated. An important element in engineering design process is the interaction among the client, designer, and user. This past year, one of the design projects our engineering students (as designers) worked on in collaboration with physics students (as clients and users) was to design rolling objects for a physics lab, with a goal of completing a loop-the-loop while satisfying certain constraints on object properties. For the engineering students, the collaboration was a chance to experience the design process. The engineering design teams met with the clients to clarify the project needs and review background physics laws such as energy conservation and rotational dynamics. Following the design process (see Dym and Little 2009 [1]), engineering students developed a problem statement identifying objectives and constraints. After exploring the design space and considering alternative designs, design teams presented a detailed design to their clients and sought feedback. Finalized designs were prepared using a 3D printer, and a technical report and final product were delivered to their clients. For the physics class, the project combined an emphasis on open-ended problem solving toward a specific experimental goal. Unlike many introductory physics labs, which may have more of a “cookbook” nature with students simply following a proscribed method, this lab required students to creatively apply knowledge learned in the classroom. Overall, through the collaboration on this project, engineering students experienced a full engineering design process and physics students experienced an engineering-type challenge using concepts learned in their own course.
Author(s):
Esther Tian
Mathematical Sciences Department
Eastern Mennonite University
United States
Daniel King
Mathematical Sciences Department
Eastern Mennonite University
United States