Freshmen can do rigorous open-ended design

Abstract

The College of Engineering at West Virginia University is experimenting with a new approach to freshmen engineering courses. These courses are based on engineering design projects, but the focus is on integrating math and science course material into the design project. Thus, to do the design, students are asked to utilize math and science principles from their courses via models for the design object. The results of the student designs indicate that mathematically rigorous and scientifically sound designs can be accomplished by freshmen students. Many of the freshmen designs rival upper class designs for similar projects.