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| Home : Volume 32 : Winter 2006 | |
| Redesigning mechanical engineering design coursework | |
In Jay Martin's fall 2005 design course, ME students Katie Burke, Matt Perschbacher (at left), Vincent Poon and Jeff Trower (right) applied their engineering knowledge not toward building solid models or making a prototype but to an entirely different end: creating a business plan. With a prototype of a new wheelchair lock-down system already in hand, they focused on strategies for sustainable manufacturing of the inexpensive and effective system, called Slidelock. During travel on vans or buses, Slidelock lets wheelchair users secure their chairs themselves by simply rolling their wheels back between two locking metal bars. This semester, the students hope to find a manufacturing partner for Slidelock. The group will also refine its business plan and enter it in the UW-Madison G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition held in April. |
In Martin's fall 2005 design course, ME students (from left) Chris Cremeens, Ryan Ulferts, Brian Barrett and Charles Meyer upgraded a hybrid gas-electric power system for wheelchairs. The new design aims to outdo purely electric systems, which use bulky battery sets weighing 100 pounds or more. With the goals of reducing wheelchair weight and boosting the system's energy storage capacity, previous students added an internal combustion engine fueled by propane. The engine rotates a generator, which in turn either charges the batteries or powers the chair's wheels. The innovation provides a lighter power system and will allow much farther and faster travel, but first engine emissions needed to be cut. To this end, the team last fall installed a catalytic muffler and an oxygen sensor to help control the air/fuel mix. This semester, the team hopes to quiet the engine's lawnmower-like roar to a noise level more on par with a floor buffer. |
Students in the mechanical engineering design courses have always dreamt up new devices and detailed them on paper. Now, they'll have more time to actually build these inventions.
For the first time last fall, ME offered a two-semester design series alongside its traditional single-semester course. Students in the new sequence still work in teams to generate and sharpen an idea, create conceptual designs, and produce solid models and assembly drawings — in fact, they have more opportunity than ever to hone these skills. But the added semester also provides time to construct proof-of-concept and prototype devices — crucial steps in validating a design.
This change to the ME curriculum reflects the importance of design — and the challenge of learning it. “Design is a skill you develop rather than knowledge you acquire,” says ME Professor Frank Fronczak, who played a major role in instituting the change. “So, design needs repetition. To gain skills in it, students must do a lot of it.”
Moreover, students who join industry after graduation often do design on interdisciplinary teams. For this reason, students of all levels and from all across campus can now take the new series.
“Project teams should include students from other colleges so that engineering students can appreciate the decision-making processes of different people, such as those in the business school,” says ME Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) member Oliver Julien of the Madison-based company Design Concepts. “Industry needs engineering graduates who can work effectively on teams with people from other disciplines.”
Julien is currently working with Fronczak to add theory on project management and group decision-making to Fronczak's design classes. That way, students are exposed to many different methods of solving problems and reaching consensus, instead of simply experiencing the single group process that develops within their teams, says Julien.
He's not the only advisory board member to help retool the department's coursework; since 2003, the entire IAB has assisted the ME faculty in developing a systematic and continuous process of curriculum improvement. Faculty and board members quickly made design a focus of the effort, says ME Professor and design instructor Jay Martin, who heads the reform initiative.
The model for the changes now in place is the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program, which started at Purdue University. In UW-Madison EPICS sections, led by Martin, Fronczak and others, students from other departments can join ME students in tackling community service-based engineering projects, such as advanced features for wheelchairs. The projects are ongoing — involving both design and fabrication — and students can enroll for more than one semester.
But the new two-semester design offering is by no means a carbon copy of Engineering Projects in Community Service. It's very much its own entity and an evolving experiment, Martin emphasizes. In fact, in the spirit of continuous improvement, the department plans to assess the series objectives and effectiveness on an ongoing basis. The first formal evaluation will take place at the end of the spring semester, likely with help from the Engineering Learning Center Engineering Learning Center and the IAB.
In the meantime, Martin's informal opinion of the change? It's positive. “I can already tell that students who enroll in both semesters of design will be much better off,” he says. “They'll have time not only to more thoroughly understand the concepts of design, but also to apply them more completely.”
Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Date last modified: 03-Feb-2006
Date created: 03-Feb-2006
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