Development, implementation and assessment of a common first year end-of-semester engineering design project in an integrated curriculum

At the newly established University of Maine's Brunswick Engineering Program, an integrated curriculum is under development that covers the equivalent of the first two years of the B.Sc. in Mechanical, Electrical, Civil and Computer Engineering. Upon completion of the program, the students finish their degree following the traditional curriculum at the home campus. The program emphasizes a theory-simulation-experimentation approach that during the first semester is reflected in two core courses: IEN110 Integrated Engineering 1, and IEN120 Engineering Studio 1. These courses cover the equivalent of first semester courses in calculus and physics, introduction to engineering and engineering design, and engineering computation, and introduce CAD and a high level programming language (MATLAB). An end-of-semester project suitable for both courses needs to contribute to the individual course outcomes, as well as to the overall semester outcomes. The project goal is to challenge the students to, after suitably modeling the physical processes, explore the design space with the aid of the computational tools, and to then develop a design using 3D CAD that best meets the design parameters. The final design is then presented to the "client" (the faculty) both in report and presentation format (introducing the communication outcome), and subsequently is built and tested experimentally. The project assessment is carried out in four phases (project planning, critical design review, build and test day, and post test evaluation), with separate grade components at each assessment point for each of the courses. Assessment results indicate a high level of perceived learning and satisfaction from the students, and strong alignment with the overarching project goals of understanding the engineering design process, developing the capability to represent real-world engineering problems mathematically by applying appropriate simplifications, and to communicate effectively both orally and in writing.