Instructor: Rob Duarte
Instructor Email: rduarte@ucsd.edu
Prerequisites: None

Course Description: This course gives students an opportunity to engage the field of engineering in an exciting and unique, experiential way. Students will experience the engineering design process through hands on projects that challenge their creative problem-solving abilities, while allowing them to realize their visions in the form of working models or prototypes. Throughout the three weeks, the course will present several engineering challenges in which students will work in groups to devise solutions to social and environmental problems.  Through these challenges, students will develop skills in brainstorming, collaboration, and critical thinking. Students will also work together to produce prototypes of their designs using mostly low-cost, recycled materials and techniques learned in class. Class discussions will examine the social, cultural, and environmental aspects of technology through case studies and historical context. Field trips will be incorporated to give students a view of the designed world from an engineering perspective.

Course Objectives:

The objective of this course is to use the design process as the entry-point into a multidisciplinary exploration of technology and engineering. The course is also designed to uncover the integrated connections between technology, art, society and culture – not through artificial pedagogy, but through an experiential method that leads students

through the real-life concerns of designers and engineers. While the lectures, discussions, case studies and presentations provide the historical, cultural and sociological context, each student will have a unique journey through the content of the course as their design-build groups engineer their own solutions to problems and learn from their mistakes and successes.

Expectations:

Students in this course will learn brainstorming techniques, how to collaborate and work as a team, and how to develop creative solutions to complex social and environmental challenges. They will learn to work through the design process from an initial idea through to the creation of working models or prototypes. Students will learn about the historical, social and cultural contexts of technology and its relationships to other fields of study. The course is meant to foster positive images of the engineering and design professions and to give students an insight into what it means to study and work in these fields. In addition, students will receive instruction and practical experience in a number of technical skills, including technical drawing, and the use of free software tools for presenting, organizing and sharing design ideas.

Course Outline:

Week 1

Lecture/Discussion: Design (STL standards 8-10)

Students will develop an understanding of the attributes of engineering design and the role of troubleshooting, research and development, invention and innovation, and experimentation in problem solving.

Lecture/Discussion: Abilities for a Technological World (STL standards 11-13)

Students will develop abilities to apply the design process.

Students will develop abilities to use and maintain technological products and systems and to assess their social and environmental impacts.

Technical Training: Freemind

Students will be trained in the use of the free Freemind software for mindmapping while creating mindmaps of an everyday process or technique

Technical Training: Google Sketchup

Students will be trained in the use of the free Google Sketchup software for technical drawings by creating simple objects and sharing them using the free Google Warehouse service

Students will work in groups to develop a measured drawing using Google Sketchup

Students will animate a three dimensional rendering in Sketchup and share the results online

Field Trip: UCSD Campus

A walking tour of the notable engineering and design features of the UCSD campus

Students will work in groups to document a particular engineered structure through measured drawings, using Google Sketchup

Engineering Challenge #1

Week 2

Lecture/Discussion: The Nature of Technology (STL standards 1-3)

Students will develop an understanding of the characteristics, scope, and core concepts of technology.

Students will develop an understanding of the relationships among technologies and the connections between technology and other fields of study.

Lecture/Discussion: Technology and Society (STL standards 4-7)

Students will develop an understanding of the cultural, social, economic, political, and environmental effects of technology

Students will develop an understanding of the role of society in the development and use of technology and the influence of technology on history.

Technical Training: Automata and machines

Students will learn about and create simple mechanisms for creating movement and doing work

Students will gain a basic understanding of electricity and electronics as methods of creating movement

Field Trip: Center for Research in Computing and the Arts' Calit2 facility

A tour of the high-tech CRCA facility, led by a senior researcher, highlights connections between visual art, music and technology and provides insight into some of the tools available to artists working with technology

Field Trip: Ché Cafe

Engineering Challenge #2

Week 3 Outline

Lecture/Discussion: The Designed World (STL standards 14-20)

Students will develop an understanding of medical technologies, agricultural and related biotechnologies, energy and power technologies, information and communication technologies, transportation technologies, manufacturing technologies and construction technologies.

Technical Training: Using online design resources and an Introduction to Electronics

Students will learn how to use various online resources as resources for sharing and collaboration

Students will learn about the possibilities for creating electronic devices that interact with the physical world using sensors, actuators and microcontrollers

Students will work, in groups, to create a small sensing device based on inexpensive microcontrollers

Field Trip: Engineering department tours

Tours of engineering departments such as Electrical Engineering, Structural Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering as well as the San Diego Supercomputer Center provide insight into the work engineers perform at UCSD

Field Trip:UCSD Recycling Center

Engineering Challenge #3