Work-In-Progress: Hands-On Engineering Design Activity for First Year Engineering Students Using Lego Pieces (original) (raw)

Teaching engineering design through Lego ® Mindstorms™

European Journal of Engineering Education, 2005

This paper examines a particular methodology of teaching engineering design to undergraduate engineering students, which relies on Lego ® Mindstorms ™ . A number of important issues are addressed, including the timing of the design module within the programme, prior knowledge required and assessment components. The module, which has been running for three years, was found to have many positive attributes, not only in relation to the core design activity, but also in generating good team-building and engaging students with the degree programme.

Teaching freshmen design, creativity and programming with LEGOs and Labview

2001

 For the past 3 years LEGOs have been used to teach design, creativity, and structured programming to freshmen mechanical engineering students at the University of Nevada, Reno. MECH 151 is a 3-credit hour course offered as the second semester of a first year mechanical engineering design sequence. The class utilizes a projectbased learning environment, which consists of approximately 10 design projects of increasing difficulty and scope. The course culminates with a robot battle and a presentation to local K-12 schools. Assessment methods include student surveys, external evaluators, evaluation of projects, and enrollment data. The use of LEGOs was found appealing to the students while providing an excellent medium for teaching design, programming, and creativity. Student enrollment has grown over 2 fold since the introduction of LEGOs.

Rapidly Deployable Prototyping Activities to Teach Engineering Design

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, 2000

Matthew Wettergreen is a lecturer at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. He teaches engineering design courses, including first-year engineering design and their follow on engineering design courses. Additionally he provides education via hands-on workshops and formal courses that teach students how to manufacture prototypes via low fidelity prototyping, iterative design, and the use of advanced manufacturing tools to produce high quality functioning devices. Matthew received his Ph.D. from Rice University in Bioengineering.

Toy Story: Improvements to a First Year Engineering Design Project Based on Student Feedback

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference , 2021

This complete research paper describes changes in students' perceptions of an open ended firstyear project after Design Thinking concepts were utilized as a framework for project development. In the spring of 2019, we began a new mini-project so that students could experience the development of a prototype through 3D printing. Students were asked to design a bath toy for preschoolers which must float, be self-righting, and fit within the dimensions of 60mm x 60mm x 60 mm. 25% of their project grade consisted of the aesthetic appeal of the toy, as ranked by a panel of experts (students at the university preschool). Students worked in teams of four to design the toys. As a result of the 2019 student feedback, Designing Thinking concepts were incorporated, toy size limits were increased to 120 mm x 120 mm x 120 mm, individual student design submissions were increased, and more opportunities were included for team members to discuss designs prototypes and collaborate.

Redesign of a Toy Project for First Year Engineering Courses

2011

Many students decide to study engineering because they like to design and build things or they like the hands-on work. However, most of the engineering programs devote the first two years of the engineering curriculum to theoretical foundations in math and science with little or no connection with the engineering majors. As a result, a big number of students are stepping out of engineering due to a lack of design and hands on experience during the first two years. This paper reports the implementation of a redesign project in two freshman engineering courses. The purpose of this project is not only to introduce the design process and professional skills such as teamwork and communication among others, but also to serve as a means to connect the students with the engineering field from the very beginning and motivate them to stay in a technical career.

Application of LEGO Mindstorms Kits for Teaching Mechatronics Engineering

International Journal for Innovation Education and Research

One of the major educators’ challenges is to teach the theoretical lessons with practical examples that can be taught in the classroom or teaching laboratories. The application of these examples will face a major problem for students in engineering: the difficulty of understanding and seeing how a mechatronic device works in everyday life. This requires the use of tools that enable the construction of different low cost prototypes to assist in student learning. Another challenge to educators is the need to motivate students during the lessons and to present models that students can make and develop on their own. Within this context this paper presents a pedagogic proposition based on the use of LEGO Mindstorms kits to teach practical lab activities in a mechatronics engineering course. The objective is to develop teaching methodologies with the use of these LEGO kits in order to motivate the students and also to promote a higher interdisciplinarity, by proposing projects that unify ...

Ac 2007-710: A Class for Undergraduate Technical Literacy Using Lego Mindstorms

Much effort is underway to encourage students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. There is a growing base of infusing these necessary skills and attitudes to stimulate the pursuit of these avenues as careers. There is also much effort aimed at addressing the diminishing skills in math and many of the sciences. As technology is becoming pervasive in many US classrooms, the skills and knowledge necessary to utilize this technology is being provided to students. However, there is little effort to build a broad base of understanding and appreciation of engineering principles that lies behind much of our technology today. This paper presents a class which was developed to provide an exciting, hands-on method to explore engineering concepts using LEGO MINDSTORMS. The class was targeted toward those students who would not normally choose an engineering or technology profession. These participants learned about engineering in a practical and useful manner using LEGO Robots. This paper will present the class, the modules developed for the class and the results of the workshop held in August 2006. The desired outcome of the class is that technologically nonproficient citizens will be better prepared to function in a global, technology-intense world.

Teaching Engineering Design and Communication in First Year Using Rube Goldberg Projects

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2011

First year engineering classes tend to be very large and impersonal, which can make it difficult for instructors to engage the students. Since the first year of courses is critical in setting students up for success in engineering, being able to inspire them and give them some hands on experience during their introduction to engineering design plays a significant role in bolstering their confidence and interest as they enter more demanding and technical upper-level courses. With an aim toward achieving this inspiration and engagement, the first year engineering design and communication class at the University of Regina included the production of Rube Goldberg machines as the term project. This proved to be a very effective mechanism for teaching students how to work on a design project from start to finish. The students had fun and stretched their imaginations. As a result, the overall feedback from students was very positive, but areas for improvement have been identified.