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Which prototyping skills should we teach in first-year design? The answer is as few as possible

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Conference

2020 First-Year Engineering Experience

Location

East Lansing, Michigan

Publication Date

July 26, 2020

Start Date

July 26, 2020

End Date

July 28, 2020

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--35784

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/35784

Download Count

439

Paper Authors

biography

Matthew Wettergreen Rice University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-9966-1540

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Matthew Wettergreen is an Associate Teaching Professor in Engineering at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen at Rice University.

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Joshua Brandel

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Abstract

Engineering design teams are most successful when members possess a broad range of skills to tackle a project. Instructors of design courses are challenged to select and teach the most important skills they believe will be useful for students now and in the future. Some skills, including teaming and engineering design process skills, can be acquired in a short period of time by applying evidence based training models. But in terms of prototyping, since there are so many tools and machines available, the question arises of which are truly critical to student success. In first-year design at Rice University, a course that has existed for almost ten years, we aim to teach students only the prototyping skills needed to complete their projects. Students participate in just three workshops that are prototyping related, two of which are required (hand tools and electronics) and an optional third (CAD). By recording student prototyping and measuring experience gains, we have investigated how skills contribute to project completion. The results illustrate that the question for first-year design education is not how many prototyping skills can be taught, but how few an instructor can get away with.

Wettergreen, M., & Brandel, J. (2020, July), Which prototyping skills should we teach in first-year design? The answer is as few as possible Paper presented at 2020 First-Year Engineering Experience, East Lansing, Michigan. 10.18260/1-2--35784

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