The discipline of engineering design, from school to higher education

This paper stems from two seminars concerned with motivating and selecting future engineers. It traces design education as a consistent academic discipline from primary to higher education showing how it is based on a recognition of the nature of creativity, of the forms of useful knowledge and of how the two combine in the processes of designing. The paper demonstrates how current developments in design education at age 16 - 18 could be used, pro-actively, for assessment and selection into engineering higher education. The presentation itself will develop the discipline through the analysis of exemplars of work from pupils, students and professional engineers.