Students work in teams on a client-based design problem. Each design team typically consists of eight students--half sophomores and half juniors. Each first-semester sophomore is paired with a first-semester junior, who serves as a peer mentor in the design process, and also as a peer advisor on issues such as course and area choices that go beyond the immediate goals of the course. The team is divided into these sophomore-junior pairs who form four subgroups which each develop a conceptual design for the first third of the semester. In this approach, the sophomores have the opportunity to learn the design process from the more experienced juniors. For the final two-thirds of the semester, the subgroups join together as eight-person teams to complete the final design and prototype implementation.

The following statement indicates which of the following considerations are included in this course: economic, environmental, ethical, political, societal, health and safety, manufacturability, sustainability.

This course supports the following program objectives to develop the ability: 1) to do engineering design, 2) to integrate engineering and life sciences for solving biomedical engineering problems, 3) to do real-world engineering practice, 4) to function on diverse teams, 5) to communicate across disciplines, and 6) to develop leadership skills.