March / April 2004

Biosystems Engineering Freshmen Get a “Taste” of Engineering Design

By: Bradley Marks
Associate Professor, PhD., P.E.

Capstone design experiences in senior-level engineering courses require students to apply the basic knowledge they have acquired over the course of their degree programs to a large-scale, comprehensive engineering design project. In contrast, a unique “cornerstone” course in the Biosystems Engineering program is exposing students to the design process at the beginning of the curriculum. This required course (BE 130), Engineering Design Fundamentals for the Biological Systems, is taught by Bradley Marks, associate professor of Biosystems Engineering, and was introduced four years ago in order to improve student retention and to provide design experiences across the entire curriculum. Traditionally, engineering design experiences have been found only in upper-level courses. Although first-year students are obviously not prepared to complete technically complex engineering designs, they can learn to apply the basic techniques associated with the engineering design process, and this course actively engages students in this process.

For example, in one of the design projects, teams of BE 130 students were assigned to design, build, and test an apparatus that was capable of accurately weighing objects between 1 and 100 grams in mass and smaller in size than a golf ball. However, as an added twist, the apparatus had to be made of materials that are commonly eaten, and had to be entirely consumed by the team after testing. The purpose of the assignment was for students to complete the entire design process, including selection of design criteria, brainstorming, design analysis and selection, testing, and presentation and documentation of the design--all at a level that is technically appropriate for first-year engineering students. Using edible materials introduced an added constraint that is universal in the discipline of Biosystems Engineering--the variability and instability of biological materials.

After this course, we find that our students move through the rest of the curriculum with a greater understanding of the importance of creativity and teamwork in engineering design, and therefore are better motivated for the core curriculum that adds critical technical competencies to their basic understanding of the engineering design process.

This article first appeared in Currents Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 2 (winter 2004), published by the College of Engineering at MSU

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April 6, 2004