A Project-Oriented Capstone Course for Creative Engineering Education

Chi-Cheng Cheng; Chia-Chi Wang; Yu-Jen Wang; Ying-Yao Cheng; Chua-Chin Wang

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Conference: 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Publication Date: June 26, 2016
Start Date: June 26, 2016
End Date: June 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-68565-5
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design
Tagged Division: Mechanical Engineering
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/p.26412
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/26412
Download Count: 582

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Paper Authors

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Chi-Cheng Cheng National Sun Yat-Sen University

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Dr. Chi-Cheng Cheng has been with the Department of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering of National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan since 1991. He currently is the Chairman of the Department. He is also an adjoin professor with the Institute of Undersea Technology and College of General Education of National Sun Yat-Sen University. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of University of British Columbia in Canada in 2002 and a Visiting Professor with the School of Engineering Science in Simon Fraser University in Canada in 2009. He was the Dean of Office of International Affairs of National Sun Yat-Sen University from 2007 to 2009. His research interests are in system dynamics and control, Machine vision, mechatronics, intelligent robotics, and man-machine interface. Dr. Cheng has published more than 150 technical articles in refereed international journals, conferences and book chapters. He has won the Excellent Research Award from National Science Council of Taiwan in 1998, 2001, and 2002. He was the convener of members committee of the Solar and New Energy Society of Taiwan and a publication committee member in the Chinese Ocean & Underwater Technology Association in 1995. He also served a deputy secretary-general in the Program Committee of the 21st National Conference on Mechanical Engineering of the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2007. He was a member of the Program Committee of the 4th International Conference on Mechanical and Electrical Technology (ICMET 2012) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 24-26 July 2012. He received the best paper awards in the International Conference on Signal Processing and Imaging Engineering, World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2007, San Francisco, California, USA, 24-26 October 2007 and the International Conference on Computing and Computer Vision (ICCCV 2011), Kathmandu, Nepal, 1-2 July 2011. He has been a member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) since 1987. He has also been a senior member of International Association of Computer Science and Information Technology (IACSIT) since 2011.

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Chia-Chi Wang National Sun Yat-Sen University

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Yu-Jen Wang National Sun Yat-Sen University

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Yu-Jen Wang was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1977. He received his Ph.D. from Department of Power Mechanical Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, in 2011. Currently, he is an assistant professor of Mechanical and Electromechanical Engineering Department, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. His major research interests include machine dynamics, actuator design and energy harvester.

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Ying-Yao Cheng National Sun Yat-Sen University

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Chua-Chin Wang National Sun Yat-Sen University

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Dean of Engineering College

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Abstract

The project-oriented capstone course has been required as an important criterion for international accreditation of engineering degree programs under Washington Accord. In addition to provide an opportunity for university students to apply what they have learned in their school years to actual engineering problems, the project-oriented capstone course also trains students how to work as a team. Although fundamental laboratories courses are provided to establish students’ hands-on experiences and consolidate connection between theoretical background and practical implementation, students still have difficulties to incorporate multidisciplinary knowledge into solving a real engineering problem in a more systematic way. Therefore, a one-year project-oriented capstone course, Special Topics in Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering, has been available at the junior year for undergraduate students in the Department of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University (NSYSU), Taiwan.

In 2003, Ministry of Education (MOE) of Taiwan (Republic of China) revealed the White Paper on Creative Education. Since then, a series of projects led by MOE and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) aiming at rooting imagination and creativity in education contents were promoted on different educational levels. In order to fully understand the effect on creative thinking of students, the New Creativity Test (NCT) proposed by Wu et al. in 1988, consisting two parts: verbal and figural, was applied to participating students before and after taking this project-oriented capstone course. Measures in four dimensions, including fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration, were conducted based on paired t-tests. The NCT-Verbal has the first three dimensions; however, The NCT-Figural owns all four dimensions. There were 19 participants in total, 18 males and 1 female accepting the NCT. All of them were junior undergraduate students. For the NCT-Verbal, the results showed significant difference between pre-test and post-test on fluency, flexibility, and originality. Nevertheless, similar outcome was not reflected on the NCT-Figural. The paired t-test results for the NCT-Figural indicated no significant connection between pre-test and post-test in all four dimensions. As a result, it can be concluded in the preliminary study that the project-oriented capstone course has positive effect on creative thinking in verbal aspect despite of no significant influence on creative thinking in figural aspect.

Citation
Format

Cheng, C., & Wang, C., & Wang, Y., & Cheng, Y., & Wang, C. (2016, June), A Project-Oriented Capstone Course for Creative Engineering Education Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26412

TY - CPAPER
AB - The project-oriented capstone course has been required as an important criterion for international accreditation of engineering degree programs under Washington Accord. In addition to provide an opportunity for university students to apply what they have learned in their school years to actual engineering problems, the project-oriented capstone course also trains students how to work as a team. Although fundamental laboratories courses are provided to establish students’ hands-on experiences and consolidate connection between theoretical background and practical implementation, students still have difficulties to incorporate multidisciplinary knowledge into solving a real engineering problem in a more systematic way. Therefore, a one-year project-oriented capstone course, Special Topics in Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering, has been available at the junior year for undergraduate students in the Department of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University (NSYSU), Taiwan.

In 2003, Ministry of Education (MOE) of Taiwan (Republic of China) revealed the White Paper on Creative Education. Since then, a series of projects led by MOE and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) aiming at rooting imagination and creativity in education contents were promoted on different educational levels. In order to fully understand the effect on creative thinking of students, the New Creativity Test (NCT) proposed by Wu et al. in 1988, consisting two parts: verbal and figural, was applied to participating students before and after taking this project-oriented capstone course. Measures in four dimensions, including fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration, were conducted based on paired t-tests. The NCT-Verbal has the first three dimensions; however, The NCT-Figural owns all four dimensions. There were 19 participants in total, 18 males and 1 female accepting the NCT. All of them were junior undergraduate students. For the NCT-Verbal, the results showed significant difference between pre-test and post-test on fluency, flexibility, and originality. Nevertheless, similar outcome was not reflected on the NCT-Figural. The paired t-test results for the NCT-Figural indicated no significant connection between pre-test and post-test in all four dimensions. As a result, it can be concluded in the preliminary study that the project-oriented capstone course has positive effect on creative thinking in verbal aspect despite of no significant influence on creative thinking in figural aspect.
AU - Chi-Cheng Cheng
AU - Chia-Chi Wang
AU - Yu-Jen Wang
AU - Ying-Yao Cheng
AU - Chua-Chin Wang
CY - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA - 2016/06/26
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Project-Oriented Capstone Course for Creative Engineering Education
UR - https://peer.asee.org/26412
DO - 10.18260/p.26412
ER -