Teaching Multi-Disciplinary Design: Solar Car Design
Abstract
Multi-disciplinary design can be taught in a very general way focusing on methods and procedures that work for any multi-disciplinary design project or in a very specific way focusing on a specific multi-disciplinary design project. The general approach teaches students the principles of how to approach any multi-disciplinary design project but often lacks meaningful examples of how the principles are applied. Focusing on a specific multi-disciplinary design project gives the students a meaningful example of how to apply design principles but they may have difficulty generalizing what they have learned and how it can be applied to other projects. To get a good background in engineering design, engineering students should have educational experiences that are both general and specific. This paper describes a course developed at the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) to teach multi-disciplinary design by focusing on the design of a solar racing car. The purpose of the course is to teach the aspects of a multi-disciplinary design project utilizing a specific example for student comprehension.
Recommended Citation
D. R. Carroll and P. D. Hirtz, "Teaching Multi-Disciplinary Design: Solar Car Design," Journal of Engineering Education, American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), Apr 2002.
Department(s)
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Keywords and Phrases
Multi-Disciplinary Design; Optimization; Project Management
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
1069-4730
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2002 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Apr 2002
