Thirty-Second Overview

One-Sentence Description: This is a 7-week-long engineering class project tasking student teams to integrate their knowledge of sensor-control Arduino-based systems with their exploration of different communities' wants and needs in order to design a physical prototype that engages young learners on climate change issues.      

Course: The course uses 8-weeks of instruction to extend from topics introduced in a prerequisite course regarding the engineering design process. Additionally, the course uses 5-weeks of instruction in an associated lab/studio component to introduce topics in sensor-control Arduino based systems. The project-based learning (PBL) unit is introduced mid-semester as a means of integrating the two course threads. The implementation of this PBL can work well in other class contexts that introduce or overview topics in engineering design, Arduino systems, and/or engineering circuits. 

Topic: This card's learning activities center on empathic efforts in engineering design as well as sensor-control Arduino-based systems.

Time: This is a 7-week long PBL unit, where seven 100-minute lab/studio periods are used to support the team-based project efforts and there is 1 showcase of the functioning physical prototype during the final week of class.

Engineering students at James Madison University are required to take a two-course engineering design sequence in their sophomore year: ENGR 231 Engineering Design I in the Fall semester and ENGR 232 Engineering Design II in the Spring semester. In years past, the two-course sequence supported a year-long seminal engineering design project experience. With increased student enrollment, it became necessary in AY2023-24 to restructure the two-course sequence such that each course supported distinct opportunities for students to apply their learning of engineering design principles.

As such, ENGR 231 in the Fall semester shortened the instruction of the product design process from a year-long experience to a semester-long endeavor. In ENGR 231, students learned how to gather background information, draft problem statements, write design requirements, conduct benchmarking based on functions using morphological matrices, create models (i.e., analytical, geometric, and physical), create divergent design concepts, converge onto select design concepts based on Pugh Charts and Decision Matrices, embody their design concept in engineering drawings and physical prototyping, verify their compliance to the design requirements via target specifications, and document their project efforts in a technical report and a professional presentation. A multi-week-long project allowed students to apply their learning of the product design process in ENGR 231.

Subsequently, ENGR 232 in the Spring semester was afforded a new opportunity to extend from product design topics introduced in ENGR 231, particularly by overlaying and making more transparent empathic efforts found in human-centered design. Specifically in ENGR 232, students explored case studies of engineering solutions being misaligned to community wants and needs (e.g., PlayPump, John Burns Freeway, etc.), how to gather demographic information using Policy Map, identifying stakeholders in a community, conducting a PESTLE analysis of stakeholders, writing meaningful interview questions in order to conduct rich stakeholder interviews, creating skeletons and personas, and framing opportunity statements based on community wants and needs. A new EM-infused, multi-week-long project was created in order to allow students to apply their learning of the human-centered design process in ENGR 232.

A 7-week-long PBL unit was created for 4-5 member student teams to apply their learning of engineering design principles first introduced in ENGR 231 and later extended in ENGR 232. The PBL unit featured a fictitious context whereby each student team was couched as having been reached out to by a controls company motivated to educate a future engineering workforce in sensor-controls based systems. This client desired student teams to develop a functioning sensor-control based system that could educate young learners on control systems and become motivated to pursue a future career in engineering. Moreover, the fictitious context introduced a partnering conservation agency who had a pre-established list of nearby community entities who readily engaged with young learners, including local schools, local museums, conservation societies, youth services, etc. This conservation agency was posited as one that was highly motivated in raising awareness of climate change issues in the Shenandoah Valley, and the inclusion of this stakeholder was meant to help students "situate" their technical problem solving efforts (i.e., sensor-control Arduino-based system) to a real-world, socio-cultural context (i.e., climate change issues in a proximate region of interest).

The way in which EM is manifested in this PBL unit are that student teams needed to:

• Be Curious by authentically exploring the client's motivations, the conservation agency's mission, and a specific community's wants and needs;
• Make Connections by iteratively designing an engineering solution that responds to the client's motivations, the conservation agency's mission, and a specific community's wants and needs; and
• Create Value by using the engineering design process to physical construct a functioning public exhibit in an outdoor environment that young people might interact with to learn more about changing ecological conditions that impact human comfort and human safety.