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BME Senior Design and Freshmen Engineering Blair A. Rowley, Ph.D., P.E. College of Engineering & Computer Science Wright State University Dayton, Ohio 45435

Abstract This paper reports the results for a senior-freshman teaming event that took place during the fall quarter 2004. It describes the rational for the event, the design leadership required of the seniors, the structure of the design environment, project reports, student reactions, and the event evaluations.

This is the second year that our biomedical engineering seniors have been coupled with our engineering and computer science freshmen on a joint design project. The first year results were promising enough to continue doing it the second year. The second year had improved expectations for the seniors coupled with more time to interact with the freshmen. Seniors gained valuable experience leading a design team while the freshmen gained experience teaming and interacting with upperclassmen. This event was possible as the director of the freshman engineering and computer science program was also the professor for the initial course in BME senior design. Over all this has been a win-win effort.

Introduction Our BME senior design program consists of three courses taught over three quarters. The fall quarter introduces the students to principles of design. By the end of the quarter the students have been divided into teams and assigned a final project to work on during the next two quarters. The spring quarter involves designing a device to meet the specific project and during the third quarter the students build and deliver a working device.

In the fall quarter the students practiced design from initial concept to final specifications. This involved the client statement, problem definition, conceptual design, preliminary design, detailed design, design communication, and final design. During this period they learned to use design tools such as objective trees, function-means trees, morphological charts, and Gantt charts. As the quarter progressed they were placed in teams and assigned to develop solutions to problems assigned in class. Here they learned about team dynamics: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. The text used in the first quarter provided the students with a good resource for studying these concepts 1. By the middle of the quarter the seniors were beginning to learn the design concepts but needed something more practical to practice on than in-class problems. For this the seniors were coupled with a freshman team.

Our freshman engineering and computer science program is a one quarter course offered each quarter of the freshman year. All freshmen in the college are required to take it. The course integrates a lecture and two labs each week. There are also a number of team events which

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American society for Engineering Education

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Rowley, B. (2005, June), Bme Senior Design And Freshmen Engineering Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14842