Work in Progress - integrated project - a multi-year undergraduate experience

Civil Engineering Faculty at Centre Universitario Positive created, in 2003, the "Integrated Project", a multidisciplinary design task involving all years and all courses in the program. Each year, a central theme is chosen, and design tasks are assigned to every course in the program. In 2003 the theme selected was the infrastructure of a small urban community, while in 2004 the choice was a rural community. The students are given a list of the minimum components of the community, and their first task is to create the community layout. In order to make the design realistic, an area is selected and the students are given access to it for surveying and sample collection purposes. While the intention is to achieve full integration among all courses, the initial attempts have been focused on creating plausible design tasks for all courses.