Using everyday objects to engage students in standards education

This paper describes an innovative approach to standards education in an undergraduate mechanical engineering technology design course. The work is focused on making standards appeal to students by using “everyday objects” (e.g. toaster, ladder, grill, etc.) as catalysts to introduce the topic of standards in a way that connects to students' daily lives. The project involves instructor-librarian collaboration to incorporate information literacy and campus library resources into the standards curricula, so that students not only become familiar with standards resources, but also proficient at searching for and locating the documents. Preliminary results and observations indicate this is an effective approach to introduce the topic of technical standards in design courses.