Benefits of embedding student research training projects in an engineering introductory seminar course

To better realize the project based learning, student research training projects (SRTP) are implemented into a engineering introductory seminar course. Our two years' teaching experience on two classes with and without the project showed that embedding a real SRTP project could be more benificial than a traditional course project. The real project enhanced effectively the students' motivation and confidence. It is also good for achieving higher level of students' final work. Good post-course influence was also observed. It is suggested that students should let to choose freely the project that they were really interested by themselves. More importantly, their projects should be supported with some kinds of formal style, such as SRTP.