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Merging Design Competition and Industry Sponsored Projects

Rebecca Blust, David Myszka Engineering Technology

University of Dayton

Abstract

Over the past several years, the use of competition-based projects in engineering and engineering technology education has dramatically increased. These competitions take on many different forms. Many individual technical organizations sponsor a collegiate design competition. Additionally, many schools conduct their own internal competitions. These projects provide the benefit of the increased learning from student-focused experiences with the additional benefits of motivation and reward that stem from design competitions. Further, the recent popularity of reality-television provides the evidence of the entertainment value from a task-oriented competition.

Like other institutions, the Engineering Technology programs at the University of Dayton have also introduced design competitions throughout the curriculum. Because the business environment is dynamic, we as educators are continuously seeking opportunities to improve our processes. Therefore, in an effort to increase student exposure to realistic business situations, we have extended these competitions and integrated a portion of them into our industry-sponsored senior project course. When using competitive teams, the client presents an open-ended project to multiple teams. The teams work in relative isolation to provide an optimal solution for the company. Student teams benefit from the design competition experience while the client gains multiple solutions to their problem. Advisors provide a healthy environment for the competition, stressing ethics and honorable business practices. This paper will discuss the rationale of this venture, methods, current models, administrative issues and the results of this effort.

1. Introduction

Capstone Projects Over the past two decades, capstone project courses have emerged as an essential element of a technical education. In fact, this experience has become a “residency-like” requirement for engineering and engineering technology graduates. These projects have evolved to team based, interdisciplinary, industry sponsored experiences, which often require prototypes or another form of verification6.

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

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Blust, R., & Myszka, D. (2005, June), Merging Design Competition And Industry Sponsored Projects Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--15224