Teach Engineering: Teaching the Engineering Design Process

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process (EDP) while learning about assistive devices and biomedical engineering. They first go through a design-build-test activity to learn the steps of the cyclical engineering design process. Then, during the three main activities (7 x 55 minutes each) student teams are given a fictional client statement and follow the EDP steps to design products--an off-road wheelchair, a portable wheelchair ramp, and an automatic floor sweeper computer program. Students brainstorm ideas, identify suitable materials and demonstrate different methods of representing solutions to their design problems--scale drawings or programming descriptions, and simple models or classroom prototypes.