Learning Design From Day One of Undergraduate Studies

All engineering courses, including naval architecture, have to ensure that the students gain a firm grasp of both analysis and synthesis techniques. However there is a significant difference between how these two are dealt with in educational programmes: analysis techniques are conventionally taught in detail and extensively throughout the three or four years of an undergraduate course, while synthesis is often ignored until the final stages of a degree programme, and then dealt with in a relatively cursory fashion. This is understandable as analysis techniques are far more involved, and require many hours of study to grasp and, more fundamentally, it can be asked, how can you synthesise a solution without first learning to analyse and evaluate it? However naval architects are essentially designers, so it would clearly be beneficial if our students were learning the entire process of design, meaning both analysis and synthesis, from the earliest stages of their programmes. This paper will report on the recent experience at Newcastle University where, following a review and reorganisation of our undergraduate programmes, design theory and practice has been introduced to the course from day one. In the paper the rational for the reorganisation will be briefly outlined, but the main focus of the paper will be on the teaching and learning process, which has involved presenting the students with a series of paper and cardboard boat design challenges that they have to respond to by undertaking design-and-build exercises throughout the first semester of their course. Despite the students having little of no knowledge of analysis techniques the challenges introduce them to the concepts of elicitation, creativity, synthesis, optimisation, satisfycing, evaluating, and of virtual prototyping. The paper will conclude with a student led review of the value of this approach.