First Year Engineering Foundation Courses and UQ Innovate
The background
Students studying engineering have a better understanding of potential design issues if they’ve some practical hands-on experience and confidence proto-typing their ideas in a workshop environment where manufacturing and fabrication can take place. Since 2012, first year engineering students have been exposed to EAIT faculty’s ‘maker-space’ environment for proto-typing their design concepts through the first-year foundation courses of ENGG1100 Engineering Design/Professional Engineering and ENGG1200 Engineering Problem Solving and Modelling. In 2019 the EAIT’s maker-space workshops were renamed as UQ Innovate.
A significant portion of the content for these two courses involved a design and build team project, where students collaborate with five to six others to solve a design problem. The projects usually involve multiple engineering disciplines, and reflect experiences typically found within the professional engineering design process.
In 2011 the course was redesigned by Professor Lydia Kavanagh and A/Prof. Carl Reidsema using a ‘blended learning’ approach. This meant much of the course content was available in the weeks’ prior via podcasts, videos, or self-directed activities. Then when students arrived at specific sessions, their pre-knowledge of what was to be discussed enabled deeper understanding throughout the session. The courses also involved many interactive and hands-on activities in UQ Innovate, backed up by staff feedback and reflection. An objective of both courses was students should ‘owning their own learning’.
Increasingly students have less and less exposure to home tinkering and access to hand tools or conversely students have limited access to the complex manufacturing methods we’ve come to be familiar with through technological advances. Both the course teaching teams and UQ Innovate staff collaborate to provide tutorials, training modules and support to build useful skills throughout these courses each semester. Well planned practical exercises bring every student into the prototyping environment, aiming to increase capacity and develop a sense of engineering legitimacy.
Below is a quote from recent student course evaluation, concerning the best aspects of the course experience:
“Learning to work in teams, and communication and problem-solving skills. The fact that we are thrown into the deep end was terrifying at first but in hindsight, we’re very lucky to have access to the resources that we do and to have to opportunity to participate in a hands-on real project like this. Doing is the best way to learn.”
Pivoting the course in 2020
In Semester 1, 2020 all students were directed to complete their studies externally from off-campus. This semester, ENGG1100 was coordinated by Dr Stephen Hall, and involved three separate multi-discipline projects running in parallel. Stephen and his team acted quickly to move the course and all its part to on-line delivery only. Because of the timing, most students hadn’t seen UQ Innovate of knew of the practical aspects involved.
Stephen and his teaching team redesigned the three project assessments to be more about the design challenge, with students submitting a video of their design process instead of building a physical prototype for testing. This change brought some benefits to the students through their learning as they:
generally found preparing a video less stressful an assessment than a physical prototype;
were able to distribute and demonstrate workload division more easily amongst the team;
enabled less confident speakers some editing time to ensure they conveyed their ideas clearly;
gave more time to consider their design decisions, without the stress of building within 5-6 weeks;
enabled students to appreciate communicating their ideas clearly to others was a means of improving and justifying design decisions;
and marking and assessing students was more transparent, as marks from a video were more easily checked and verified through the artefact created.
The downsides of directing the project away from physical prototyping reduced the students understanding of the physical nature of their decisions and their ability to learn through the prototyping process. Below is a quote from the progress survey we conducted in Week 5 of semester, after we’d pivoted to on-line delivery:
“I am a little confused about what the 'virtual build' consists of and whether we are required to use specific software programs to demonstrate the prototype design online. Also, in what way will we demonstrate that the water treatment system fulfills the requirements (removes the required amount of TSS and TDS etc.)? However, under these circumstances, I think the transition to online learning has been smooth and all the videos and podcasts have been very useful."
So, what then?
In Semester 2, 2020 students returned to campus to participate in ENGG1200, which had a similar design-build flavour to ENGG1100, with more focus on initial virtual prototyping.
Some parts of the classes were still conducted virtually on Zoom and supported by blended learning resources on Blackboard. Delivery of course content through Zoom this semester suited the self-directed aspects of the course and enabled clearer demonstration of prototyping tools used in the course. For example, virtual modelling software was shared on Zoom, while in real-time students were able to practice with the software on their own computers.
For ENGG1200 2020 the teaching team integrated both external and internal students into blended design teams, ensuring every activity of the class was delivered in dual mode (via Zoom and face-to-face). Team formation of internal and external students provided opportunity for the external students to have a sense of inclusion and belonging with their internal counterparts. External students tended to focus on the virtual modelling activities, while those on campus could concentrate on the physical prototyping aspects. In real-world engineering project delivery, teams work collaboratively across borders and specialisations, so this model of teamwork spoke directly to professional expectations.
Reflection
Since this particular cohort had completed ENGG1100 during Covid lockdown, they’d not spent any time in a workshop environment, unlike previous cohorts. This impacted on these students when they were tasked with the physical aspects of prototyping. Typically, ENGG1200 did not have the same level of introductory practicals and support tutes, as it relied on the learnings of ENGG1100, a course prerequisite. Consequently, student confidence around physical prototyping and testing was significantly impacted. Teams were also challenged by the mature practices of working with internal and external sub-teams. The division of work between these groups wasn’t always even, and needed more project management than anticipated by students.
Proposed solutions explored/implemented to address the issue
For Semester 1, 2021, a review of ENGG1100 was completed as part of the Engineering Curriculum Review. Every aspect of the course was revisited, including the assessment structure, delivery of content, and student involvement in UQ Innovate. Through this process the course was supported by new high-quality learning resources, planned for repeat use and to better facilitate self-directed learning. Through this process the course was renamed ENGG1100 Professional Engineering.
The multi-discipline project was retained for the course as a major mechanism for achieving the course objects of team work and contextualising the experiences of a professional engineer.
Based on the potential the course may be pivoted to online (external) study only at any point, one project was developed for the semester to reduce the replication of resources for a three or four discipline specific project.
The nature of the design problem centred around the previously popular mechatronic/electrical robot project, enabling utilisation of many teaching resources already developed.
A further enhancement was the engagement of UQ Innovate technical staff to support each step of building each test rig, designing practical activities and supporting student queries. The project developed was an Unmanned Firefighting Vehicle (UFV) to be deployed at an airport scenario where planes and other vehicles on the runway could be on fire, with a test rig supporting wired heated targets that emitted steam and changed colours at the they cooled. The students built their scaled prototype UFV to extinguish the heated targets from 160 degrees to 100 degrees using squirted water. Designs and philosophies varied as per student research and problem solving.
Built into this course was also two practical activities: the manufacturing of a metal plate; and the soldering of a control board. Every student in the course (~900 students) was completed both these practicals through UQ Innovate, irrespective of their specific work task.
From this semester a number of outcomes were observed regarding student learning and practical prototyping in UQ Innovate being:
development and finalisation of the project through the semester was problematic for students and teaching staff, as firm details about design parameters were unclear and ambiguous. While this does reflect the nature of a real-world engineering problem, the ambiguity and conflicting advice and support was counter-productive to the student’s ability to grasp the necessary concepts;
students really appreciated and enjoyed the course practicals, and reported greater confidence in work within the workshop environment as a result;
the assessment structure needed to better stage the development of skills and understanding towards completion of the physical prototype demonstration in Week 13. Revision of the staging of smaller assessment items that build to larger assessment is required.
External students were separate from internal teams, working together on their own designs and demonstrating their design solutions in a demonstration video. They did not participate in the practical's on campus, but watch recordings and reflected on how the practical impacted their learning.
The resources provided in UQ Innovate were well used, but had never been tested to the extent of supporting a course with ~900 students completing the same project, with activities at the same time. ENGG1100 students heavily used UQ Innovate for 2-3 weeks at the end of semester, stretching the resources and providing less than optimum service and support.
Some aspects of the project (programming, coding and electronics) were perceived by students to be insufficiently discussed, with students spending more time on these requirements in comparison with other courses.
So what next?
For the first time, ENGG1100 will run in Semester 2, 2021 but with a much smaller cohort than Semester 1. ENGG1200 won’t run in Semester 2 for the first time since 2012, replaced by parts of ENGG1700 and ENGG1001, as a result of the Engineering Curriculum Review.
Some lessons learned from semester 1 can be implemented with the short time frame between semester namely:
As the project will be the same, the project dimensions and parameters can be communicated to students before the semester commences. Documentation about the project will also be clearer from the start.
Technical support sessions around programming, coding and electronics will be trialled through this semester with a smaller cohort. If suitable these may be rolled out for Semester 1, 2022.
Emphasis on safe work practices around using electronics, batteries and water will be introduced earlier in the semester.
The assessment timing and structure will be tweaked to better stage the students working in UQ Innovate, such that a rush is not experienced within the last weeks of semester to improve prototypes for testing.
For Semester 1, 2022 improvements will concentrate on the on-line resources for student learning, as these take some time to improve. Given the nature of recent teaching methods to incorporate more on-line and self-directed elements, improvements of some course content in this manner will free up teaching staff to better support students with the practical hands-on course elements.
Overall the response from SECat feedback indicated the students really engaged with the practical and physical aspects of the course through UQ Innovate. This will remain a corner-stone of this foundation course and steps are being taken to increase the capacity of UQ Innovate to meet the demands of a large number of first semester engineering students.
First year engineering and practical hands on skills are perfect match for the modern engineering student and a point of difference for EAIT and UQ.