MAE 1024 Introduction to Mechanical Engineering is a freshman-level course that provides an overall exposure to the ME profession. In addition to teaching technical and communication skills such as technical drawing, freehand sketching, CAD/CAM , technical computing, presenting, and report writing, the course includes a term-long engineering project where students get the opportunity to design and build a novel technical solution to a problem.
In light of entrepreneurially-minded learning (EML), the term project is designed as follows.
Instead of a product to be designed, students are given socio-technical scenarios and challenges of common interest and global importance. These issues are usually derived from various grand challenge scholar programs. For example, the issue of energy is presented as a matter of great engineering importance that also has social, economic, and political significance. The scenario is explained in context of the increased global energy demand, depleting fossil fuel reserves, increased emphasis on low-emission and alternate sources, and the increased public awareness of global climate change.
Student teams are not given a specific problem to solve. Rather, they are asked to research and learn about the issues in hand and their social and technical aspects, and define their own design problem.
The first deliverable expected from the student teams is not a design, but a proposal, where students demonstrate their understanding of the social and technical issues of the chosen problem domain, along with their approach toward addressing it. The teams must demonstrate that they explored multiple alternative paths related to the problem domain before choosing their problem statement, demonstrate an understanding of the stakeholders for the project, analyze the economic model of cost and pricing as a preliminary business case, and build a case for why they believe their solution would create value for the customer.
Under this models, each student team usually picks a different problem. They face different questions and they cross different hurdles, although they are ultimately connected to the same theme of the grand challenge. Their questions reach beyond technical issues into the utility and value of their work, the state of the art of technology, the lifestyle and economic livelihood of the beneficiaries of their solution, the solutions' limitations from social, environmental, economic, and political viewpoints, and the role of engineers as social problem-solvers and value-creators. They face the challenge of defining the right product and choosing the right technology for creating value in a market. They find answers to their questions independently or as teams, rather than by asking the professor. The resulting projects present a wide range of ideas and value propositions. Past examples range from wave energy generators to regenerative skateboards, to electricity-producing road surfaces, to shoes that help with homework at night, to naturally-powered vaccine delivery systems for areas without electricity.