Advancedlevel Designbuild experiences

1
Advanced-level Design-build experiences

• Johan Malmqvist, Pete Young, Jakob Kuttenkeuler,
  Stefan Hallström, HP Wallin, Bahram Atabeyli
• 11/7/2009

2
Aims

• Discuss aspects of advanced design-build
  experiences compare advanced-level DB
  experiences at various schools
• Objectives
• to define what is an advanced-level DB
• to identify objectives, benefits, enabling
  conditions, limitations, and collaboration
  opportunities for design-build experiences
  (includes linkages to computer-based educational
  tools)
• Identify products that can be created in this
  area by the project
• Create basis for a paper that summarizes and
  generalizes experiences from advanced-level DBs

3
What is a design-build-test experience?

• A design-build-test experience is a learning
  episode where the learning takes place through
  the creation of a product
• The product needs to be developed to the stage
  where its functionality can be tested, and thus
  itself providing direct feedback to the students
• The product can be made of hardware, software, a
  combination or a as a (functionally testable)
  digital model
• Design-build-test experiences can be used with
  many purposes to learning system design and
  building, to enhance disciplinary learning and
  more
• Design-build-test experiences range from basic
  (usable in freshman classes) as well as advanced
  (requires sophisticated technical pre-knowledge)

4
Activities, motives and challenges
DBEs train CDIO skills
DBEs are funfor students andteachers
Nano-satellites
Unified
Solar aircraft
Autonomousrobots
DBEs strengthenengineering science learning
Formula Student
DBEs aretime-consuming andcostly
Electronics project
Vehicle systems
DBEs createcross-disciplinarylinks
DBEs requirenew learningenvironments
DBEs pose teaching assessmentchallenges
5
Designing DBTs is not trivial - there is a huge
number of variables

• start conditions and end result
• industry involvement sponsorship
• project planning re-use
• project duration
• team size selection
• use of formal processes
• text sources
• individual assessment

6
Design-build experience discriminators

• Teams
• Size, selection, composition
• Teaching Learning
• Teaching techniques, CDIO syllabus items
  addressed, student support, industry involvement,
  teaching materials, staff, student initiative and
  leadership
• Assessment
• scale, type, team, individual, assessment of
  cognitive and affective skills
• Learning environment
• Lab w resources, other facilities used, ...
• ...

• Basic facts
• students, fraction male/female,
  credits/student hours
• Aims
• Train CDIO skills, strengthen disciplinary
  knowledge, create inter-disciplinary links, CDIO
  syllabus items addressed
• Curricular links
• Design-build task
• Start-up/initial conditions, End results,
  Planning, Selection, Re-use, Duration, Fraction
  of effort in course, Budget, Deliverables,
  Degrees of freedom, Complexity, Technologies used

7
Data collection

• Define or characterize what an advanced-level DB
  is
• List benefits/limitations/challenges/enabling
  conditions
• Revise and complete benchmark table
• Collect course materials
• Compare goals from CDIO syllabus and desired
  level of proficiency
• Identify DB courses at other schools and collect
  data from them

8
Requirements for advanced-level DB
9
What are the

• Benefits?
• Limitations?
• Main challenges?
• Enabling conditions?

10
benefits

• Adds realism
• Gives an overview of the development of a
  complete product
• Fun, motivating
• Gives concrete experience
• Stimulates learning of technical knowledge
• Gives deeper knowledge in previously taught
  disciplinary subjects
• Connects theory and practice
• Addresses CIO skills (not only D skills)
• Illustrates coupling between subjects, trains
  multidisciplinary analysis
• Opens up the creative process
• Gives self-confidence
• Connects academia and industry
• Prepares for professional work
• Trains non-technical skills like teamwork and
  communication

11
limitations

• Resource and time consuming
• Other courses may be down-prioritized by students
• Lack of enabling resources
• Constraints from educational system (eg schedule
  slots)

12
main challenges

• Renewal of project ideas
• Teacher and learner flexibility
• Organization teacher team
• Avoiding that students overspecialize using
  only skills that they already have, eg CAD expert
• Stating the DB task on the right level of
  difficulty

13
enabling conditions/resources

• Personnel teachers with the right competence
• Workshops
• Groupwork spaces
• Working materials available at the university
• Strong support from curriculum designers
• Research tie-in
• Strong support from (other) faculty

14
Data analysis

• What similarities and differences exist between
  DB experiences?
• Compare course learning objectives
• Identify sharable tools, methods, resources
  materials
• Identify needs for future development
• PowerPoint presentation for discussion in
  Linköping in February
• Full paper in May (MIT meeting)

15
Compared advanced-levels DBEs

• Mechatronics project, CTH
• Product Development proj, CTH
• Formula Student, CTH
• Solar aircraft, KTH
• Waterbike, KTH
• Microcomputers in products, KTH
• Mechatronics II, KTH

• Electronics project course, LiU
• Systems engineering, LiU
• Biomedical engineering, LiU
• Control project laboratory, LiU
• System design, LiU
• Computational Physics, LiU
• Electromag Formation Flying, MIT
• Sirius, LTU
• To be added

16
Some very preliminary findingsAdvanced-levels
DBEs typically

• Have a low number of students (10-40)
• Are 2-4 times larger than the average course
  (counting course credits)
• Cost 1.5-2.5 times more than the average course
• Attract few female students. Reason?
• MIT is the exception, maybe because the DBT
  experience in Unified has paved the way
• Have very similar primary objectives on a high
  leveltrain CDIO skills and multidisciplinary
  work
• only one course of 14 is explicitly given for
  students from different programs/specializations
• some courses also have specific 1.x goals stated
• Scope from project directives to working
  prototypes
• Are oriented towards vehicles, utilizing several
  technologies and 100-500 parts

17
Findings, continued

• Have six-person student teams with variations
  from 3-28. Groups with more than six students are
  divided into sub-teams
• Assessment techniques and use of grading scales
  vary significantly
• Industry involvement in all DBTs, as hardware
  sponsors, customers or speakers
• Project-decidated space needed
• Explicit curriculum links exploit earlier basic
  DBT experiences and strengthen technical
  knowledge
• Exceptions exists in all attributes

18
Key design variables

• Students do concept design vs implement concept
  designed by experienced designer
• Assessment method what you assess is what you
  learn
• Team size small gt emphasis on technical
  problem-solving, large gt project management
  teamwork

19
Sharable techniques and tools

• Learning objective set based on the CDIO syllabus
• Project work models like LIPS can be used in many
  of the DBTs
• Tools and methods for very early (planning and
  requirements and functional analysis, system
  architecture) and late phases (system and
  acceptance tests) are applicable regardless of
  domain. Intermediate phases rely heavily on
  domain-specific tools and methods
• PDM systems like that developed at Chalmers can
  be used for document management throughout the
  project
• It might be possible to create a IRM from DBTs
  but overlaps with other proposed IRMs must be
  considered

20
A closer look is needed on

• Learning objectives the objectives are very
  similar on the x.x level (2.1-2.4, 3.1-3.2,
  4.3-4.6), despites difference in size, structure,
  team size, DBT pre-knowledge
• An investigation on the x.x.x level is needed,
  possibly also including desired proficiency
  levels
• Objectives also include aspects not evidently
  included in the CDIO syllabus implications for
  the CDIO syllabus?
• Course evaluations and other evidential data
• More DBTs from other universities
• Research literature (although very few papers
  have been found up til now)
• Assessment and Teaching Learning barriers in
  DBTs are under investigation by those themes
• Lecture materials etc that may be sharable but
  have not been examined yet

21
Summary and future work

• Design-build-test experiences are an important
  part of the CDIO concept for engineering
  education
• Some preliminary definitions and
  characterizations have been proposed
• A database with DBT data has been compiled,
  enabling comparisons and constituting and idea
  catalogue
• DBT experiences come in many variations, but
  re-usable assets exist, eg project models, some
  development methods, information management
  systems
• Some additional data collection to be performed
• Paper to be written before June