Centralized Generative Design Activities to Enable Design throughout the Engineering Curriculum

This paper describes a paradigm of engineering education to implement design activities throughout the engineering curriculum. Traditionally, engineering design is taught through a capstone experience where students implement the concepts learned in technical courses. There is growing interest in changing this paradigm to teach the technical concepts through the hands-on activity of design. However, there are significant challenges to implementing this paradigm. These include time, coordination, and expertise limitations. This paper describes a paradigm where design is centralized to a specific course activity while the design artifacts are learning aids that support the other technical courses and correct misconceptions of concepts presented in those courses. We conducted a preliminary study in a 16-week design course for 89 junior and senior undergraduates in mechanical engineering. Results indicate the approach both improves the design decision-making skills of students and provides a workable framework to implement design throughout an engineering curriculum.