Teaching Engineering Design in an Academic Makerspace: Blending Theory and Practice to Solve Client-based Problems

Abstract

The proliferation of higher education makerspaces -sites where students, faculty, and staff design and build solutions to engineering challenges and other problems -suggests that such spaces have a special value on university campuses in a number of contexts. This paper reports on the unique impact of a higher education makerspace (the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design) in the arena of design education. We review the history of design education, identifying the values of this form of pedagogy and highlighting many of the challenges involved with teaching design. These values include facilitating design instruction in lab settings, establishing a continuum of design experiences, and incorporating meaningful problem-based learning activities. Similarly, we review higher education makerspaces to provide insights into how they can play a role in mitigating challenges associated with teaching design. Using examples from eight courses taught in the profiled higher education makerspace, three design-focused instructional methods are presented that integrate course instruction, skill development, knowledge acquisition, and client-based problem solving by student teams. These methods have been applied across all four undergraduate years in courses closely aligned with biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, and engineering as a whole (for an introductory course). The courses span design education across the typical gap between cornerstone and capstone design courses. In all cases, the specific role of the higher education makerspace in enhancing the value of these courses is demonstrated.

Makerspaces in First-Year Engineering Education

“…By fostering creativity and an awareness of the importance of trial and error, programs that incorporate makerspace education have shown a significant increase in student participation [9,14]. Courses taught in higher-education makerspaces meet long-standing design education goals [15,16].…”

Building an Entrepreneurial and Innovative Culture in a University Makerspace

“…There are five current VIP courses, with a new course this semester taking full advantage of the makerspace for meeting, prototyping, and equipment. Future plans include merging some of the best practices of the Yale CEID model for design courses (Wilczynski, 2016) with more student-based and informal learnings models like the Innovation Studio at Georgia Tech (Forest, 2014) or the d-school at Stanford to create an environment that can best support engineering design education. This blended model will work best as it acknowledges the institutional constraints of new curriculum design and implementation while also providing more opportunities for experimentation and interdisciplinary collaborations across departments in the engineering school and across different schools within the university.…”

Community College Innovation Centers – Lessons Learned from Works in Progress

“…While makerspaces, hackerspaces, innovation labs, fab labs, and engineering labs are technically defined with different meanings, in general usage, those terms are considered to be interchangeable [2]. In general, makerspaces are credited with helping to increase diversity and inclusion in the STEM fields.…”

“…But, if the makerspace activities are interesting to a larger population, that may be enough to encourage the potentially diverse, non-engineering population to get involved at the makerspace. Encouraging interdisciplinary activities not only increases usage of the makerspace [4], especially with Entrepreneurial majors, but also increases the diversity of those who use the lab space [3] [4] and their overall interaction [2].…”

“…In general, the sense of community often originates from simply allowing the students to participate in the governing and daily operation of the makerspace [4] [7]. Collaborative cultures tend to stem from encouraging collaboration when carrying out daily operations [4], having few restrictions on usage by encouraging academic, extracurricular, and personal projects [2], and having activities that encourage people to work together [8]. Scheduled activities such as training, workshops, and social events also encourages students to interact with each other outside of collaborative projects, which may strengthen the sense of community [2] [7].…”