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Session 2425

COUPLING OF A DESIGN COURSE TO A THERMODYNAMICS/ENERGY-CONVERSION COURSE IN THE SOPHOMORE-YEAR CORE CURRICULUM

Richard B. Cole, George DeLancey, Bernard Gallois, Michael Mackay, Gerald Rothberg, Keith Sheppard

Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering Stevens Institute of Technology

1. Introduction

The recent revision of the engineering curriculum at Stevens to create a Design Spine is intended to significantly enhance the design experience and to develop key competencies in our graduates in concert with the goals of ABET EC 2000. The Design Spine provides a design experience in each of the eight semesters for all of our engineering programs 1. A key feature is the extent to which the core design courses are coupled to the core engineering-science courses to enhance learning. Open-ended projects together with experiments in the design courses are chosen to provide context for and reinforce the engineering science taught concurrently. The Design Spine also provides the vehicle to develop key competencies in problem solving, effective communication, project management, ethics, economics of engineering, teaming and industrial ecology in an evolutionary manner throughout the sequence. The embodiment of this approach in the first semester of sophomore year is the coupling of a design course, Engineering Design III (2-credit lecture/lab.) to the introductory course in thermodynamics. The latter has been expanded from 3 to 4 credit-hours to include energy-conversion topics. 2. Integration of Engineering Courses The revised engineering curriculum at Stevens puts high priority on at least some integration among different courses. While very tight integration is not necessarily a goal, interplay between different courses is required to be conscious, recognizable, and representative of the mutual interdependence that exists among “different” engineering subjects. In the third semester, opportunity exists for integration of the design laboratory with Thermodynamics & Energy Conversion, a first course in thermodynamics taken by all engineering students. There is also potential for integration with the concurrent first course in electrical engineering, Circuits and Systems. However to date, coupling to the latter has not been explicitly developed, and the major integration has been between Thermodynamics & Energy Conversion and the Engineering Design Lab. III. Integration of the engineering-science course and the design laboratory has been produced in several respects:

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Mackay, M., & DeLancey, G., & Cole, R., & Gallois, B., & Sheppard, K., & Rothberg, G. (2000, June), Coupling Of A Design Course To A Thermodynamics/Energy Conversion Course In The Sophomore Year Core Curriculum Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8244