General Card #3907
Exploring Making and Adaptive Technology through Engineering Design
Summary
Engaging engineering design and making for freshman biomedical engineering students.
Description
- Overview: Students are tasked with designing and constructing a prototype tailored to one of four personas who have physical limitations of the upper extremities. Throughout the semester, student teams engage in hands-on application of the engineering design process, fostering curiosity as they identify problems or needs specific to their assigned personas. Through concept generation and prototype development, students build connections between lecture-based content and practical implementation, deepening their understanding of engineering principles while cultivating innovative thinking. The culmination of their efforts is showcased through both poster presentations and video demonstrations, where they not only demonstrate their prototypes but also articulate the value created by their solutions, reinforcing their learning with real-world applications.
- Setup: Teams of 2-4 engineering students and 1-2 occupational therapy students (alternatives: physical therapy students, clinical mentors or other faculty knowledgeable in rehabilitation.)
- Throughout the project, student teams receive input from occupational therapy graduate students on design requirements and clinical information/understanding of their persona.
- Time Required: This activity was designed to be incorporated into a course with a lab component. The course meeting pattern is one 50-minute lecture and one 120-minute lab per week. The design challenge takes place over 5 weeks over a 16-week semester. (There are 4 weeks in between Week 4 and Week 5, as indicated below, to allow time for students to build a prototype.)
- Week 1 - Identify the problem
- Week 2 - Create a value proposition
- Week 3 - Generate and select design concepts
- Week 4 - Build low-fidelity prototypes
- Week 5 - Present the final prototype
- Additional Resources: Provide a makerspace with materials available to the students. For this activity, students can us 3D printers, basic hand tools (e.g., drill, saws), or enlist the help of the machine shop (note - some students received training for using more advanced equipment).
- Low fidelity materials provided in a typical engineering classroom can also work if there is time to prep the classroom.
Curiosity
- Explore a contrarian view of accepted solution
In the initial phase of the design challenge, students must identify and discuss a problem related to the challenge statement. They search for existing solutions to understand how the problem is currently addressed. Following this, students articulate a clear problem statement, outline the issue, discuss its importance and why it needs fixing, and how current solutions fall short.
Connections
- Integrate information from many sources to gain insight
Each student team was given a specific persona. In order to better understand the challenges and requirements of their assigned persona, every team collaborated with two graduate-level occupational therapy (OT) students, who acted as representatives for the persona. Students also searched externally using the internet or talking to family members who may have a hand disability or upper extremity limitation.
Creating Value
- Persist through and learn from failure
Students build low-fidelity prototypes to test feasibility. They must build a prototype using tools found in their environment such as the university machine shop (e.g., 3D printing, drills, saws, etc.). Many students have not had formal training using the tools, which allows them to make mistakes and learn how to design or construct their prototype differently.
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