Designettes: An Approach to Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Education
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Frey_Designettes.pdf
Size
809.73 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Telenko, Cassandra
Wood, Kristin
Otto, Kevin
Rajesh Elara, Mohan
Foong, Shaohui
Leong Pey, Kin
Tan, U-Xuan
Camburn, Bradley
Moreno, Diana
Frey, Daniel
Date Issued
November 2015
Journal
Journal of Mechanical Design
Publisher
ASME International
Citation
Telenko, Cassandra; Wood, Kristin; Otto, Kevin; Rajesh Elara, Mohan; Foong, Shaohui; Leong Pey, Kin; Tan, U-Xuan; Camburn, Bradley; Moreno, Diana and Frey, Dan. “Designettes: An Approach to Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Education.” Journal of Mechanical Design 138, no. 2 (November 2015): 022001. © 2015 ASME International
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Design and other fundamental topics in engineering are often isolated to dedicated courses. An opportunity exists to foster a culture of engineering design and multidisciplinary problem solving throughout the curriculum. Designettes, charettelike design challenges, are rapid and creative learning tools that enable educators to integrate design learning in a single class, across courses, across terms, and across disciplines. When two or more courses join together in a designette, a multidisciplinary learning activity occurs; multiple subjects are integrated and applied to open-ended problems and grand challenges. This practice helps foster a culture of design, and enables the introduction of multidisciplinary design challenges. Studies at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) demonstrate learning of engineering subject matter in a bio-inspired robotics designette (MechAnimal), an interactive musical circuit designette, and an automated milk delivery (AutoMilk) designette. Each challenge combines problem clarification, concept generation, and prototyping with subject content such as circuits, biology, thermodynamics, differential equations, or software with controls. From pre- and postsurveys of students, designettes are found to increase students' understanding of engineering concepts. From 321 third-semester students, designettes were found to increase students' perceptions of their ability to solve multidisciplinary problems.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4031638
