Teaching design in the first years of a traditional mechanical engineering degree: methods, issues and future perspectives

Abstract

AbstractEngineering design is known as an answer to an ill-defined problem. As any answer to an ill-defined problem, it can never be completely right or absolutely wrong. The methods that universities use to teach engineering design, as a consequence of this, suffer from the same fate. However, the accumulated experience with the 'chalk and talk' teaching tradition has led to a reality in which the employers of fresh graduates are not happy with the engineers they are getting. Part of their complaints are related with the inability of recently graduate engineers to work in problems where the boundaries are not well defined, are interdisciplinary, require the use of effective communication and integrate non-technical issues. These skills are mostly absent from traditional engineering curricula. This paper demonstrates the implementation of engineering design perspectives enhancing some of the aforementioned skills in a traditional mechanical engineering curriculum. It emphasises in particular a design project that is tackled in a sequence of conventional courses with a focus that depends on the course objectives and disciplinary domain. This transdisciplinary design project conveys the idea (and effectively implements it concurrently) that design is multidisciplinary.Keywords: curriculum developmentengineering educationmechanical engineeringmultidisciplinary educationdesign and production AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to acknowledge the support of the MIT-Portugal Programme, with funding from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.Additional informationAbout the authorsArlindo Silva has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and 20 years of experience as a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Lisbon, Portugal, where he teaches Materials, Design and other Engineering-related topics at all levels of higher education. He has written three books and co-edited two more, published over 100 articles in journals, conferences and book chapters, and filed over 50 patents with his students on innovative designs. His current research interests rest on design, creativity, product development, renewable materials, materials selection methodologies and management of uncertainty in design. He received the MIT-Portugal Education Innovation Award in 2009. He is an active member of the Product Development and Management Association, the American Society of Engineering Education, the Portuguese Society for Engineering Education and the Design Society.Mihail Fontul graduated in Mechanical Engineering at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and has a doctorate in the same area at Instituto Superior Técnico from Technical University of Lisbon. He is responsible for the R&D department of the Iber-Oleff SA company and is also invited assistant professor at Mechanical Engineering Department of Instituto Superior Técnico, where he teaches Tecnology, Design and Engineering related topics at several levels of higher education. He has published over 30 articles in journals and conferences on these topics. He holds two awards in educational and pedagogical related issues.Elsa Henriques graduated and has a master and a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico. She is an associated professor at Instituto Superior Técnico in the Manufacturing Technologies and Industrial Management scientific area, being responsible for courses in "Mechanical Engineering" and "Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing" graduations and pos-graduations. During the last 15 years she has participated and/or coordinated several national and European R&D projects, mainly related to the shop floor design. She has a large number of scientific publications in national and international conferences and journals. She is a national delegate in the 7th Framework Programme of the EU.