The Engineering Design Process: An introduction to Engineering Students using the Tower Bridge Project

Familiarity with the engineering design process is essential to the professional development of the Integrated Engineer. Therefore, as part of the new MAE Transfer to Success course, an Introduction to Engineering Design module was added to familiarize new transfer students into the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at regional university with the Engineering Design Process. This paper discusses the module which is based on the design and build of a Tower Bridge using everyday items like playing cards, tape, and popsicle sticks. The students were put in teams and taken through the engineering design process in a step-by-step manner with every step briefly introduced to them followed by an activity that builds on the previous step. The process included identification of need, project definition, conceptual design, preliminary design, detailed design and then manufacturing. The teams were given a list of requirements and a budget for extra items they could buy to complete their project. The Tower Bridge platform of their built prototypes were then tested to ascertain the loads that it can support with the measured maximum loads found to range from 225g to 782g. The top three prototypes were then selected based on additional criteria including aesthetics, structural rigidity, and wind resistance. A self-assessment survey given post course module showed an overwhelmingly positive result. Greater than 90% of the respondents perceived that participation in the module improved their familiarity with the engineering design process and that the engineering design process was helpful to the success of their finished prototypes