Student-developed laboratory exercises - An approach to cross-disciplinary peer education
DS 85-2: Proceedings of NordDesign 2016, Volume 2, Trondheim, Norway, 10th - 12th August 2016
Year: 2016
Editor: Boks, Casper; Sigurjonsson, Johannes; Steinert, Martin; Vis, Carlijn; Wulvik, Andreas
Author: Henriksson, Fredrik; Johansen, Kerstin; Wever, Renee; Berry, Patrick
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: Linköping University, Sweden
Section: Educational Perspectives
Page(s): 226-235
ISBN: 978-1-904670-80-3
Abstract
With new technologies and demands from industry, universities need to adapt in order to educate engineers suited for the job market of tomorrow. Focusing on the fields of product development and mechanical engineering, topics such as new lightweight materials and lightweight designs are currently a focus of many industries, and the demand from industry is that engineers graduating should have some knowledge in these fields. In this case, a project was set up for a student-developed laboratory exercise in lightweight material, focusing on the interconnection between material properties, geometry and manufacturing technology in order to fulfil a contextual requirement. The industry chosen was the aircraft industry, due to its heavy emphasis on light weight. The chosen component (a civil aircraft radome) meant that material properties not necessarily connected to high specific strength became important, something that adds educational value to the exercise. Since the introduction of the exercise, the plan is to introduce the laboratory exercise in more courses where the interdisciplinary connections between material properties, geometry and manufacturing technology needs to be explained for students as well as evaluate how this approach to exercise development can be improved and further utilized. This paper presents the learnings from setting up the laboratory exercise, as well as discusses the possibilities of thesis works as an enabler for peer education and puts these in a context for a future, adaptive engineering education that quickly can add or renew material in the curriculum without substantial investment of resources.
Keywords: Design education, peer learning, design engineering, materials for design engineering, experiential learning