Impact of Active and Challenge Based Learning with First Year Engineering Students: Mini Drag Race Challenge

In the last decades, technology has revolutionized our world and our way of living. Universities and their educational models are facing a big challenge: technology is changing and evolving in an exponential way. The big question is how can educational models also evolve to prepare graduates with the proper skills needed for a changing technological world? Since 2013, Tecnológico de Monterrey has been implementing its Tec21 Educational model based on flexible programs on how, when and where the learning occurs and the use of Active and Challenged Based Learning with the goal of developing disciplinary and transversal (cross-curricular) competencies. This study shows the results of a Mini Drag Race Challenge for first-year engineering students of the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering programs at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey. The challenge's objective is for a group of students to design and build a car and race it along a straight-line track in the shortest possible time. The development of two soft transversal competencies were chosen with this challenge: Critical Thinking, and Problem Solving. These two soft skills are necessary for any graduate student. Results showed that students were satisfied and engaged with the learning approach of the Mini Drag Race Challenge and identified the importance of these two soft skills in solving real-life problems as future engineers. This active and challenge based learning approach takes the student outside of the traditional way of learning into a hands on experience, promoting a higher order of thinking and with the aim of developing skills and competencies that will prepare them for their engineering professional lives.