Multimedia development for engineering design projects

In conjunction with the NSF-funded Foundation Coalition at the University of Alabama selected engineering freshman students are required to study, analyze and suggest solutions for several engineering design projects. These projects were contributed by engineering faculty from various disciplines. This was to ensure that entering students were exposed to a broad range of engineering discipline material. These projects emphasized teaming, creativity, engineering proactive and communication. Initially these projects were presented to the students on paper and responses were primarily paper-based. This study investigated the creation of a multimedia framework for such engineering design projects. It was found by examining the structure and composition of these design projects that much commonality existed. Based on these findings a suggested general methodology was developed for the production of multimedia versions of present and future freshman engineering design projects. This paper describes the process followed in developing a suggested general methodology for the production of multimedia-based engineering design projects. Several multimedia versions are described and illustrated.