Systematic Design of a First‐Year Mechanical Engineering Course at Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract Carnegie Mellon University offers a first‐year course titled Fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering to introduce undergraduate students to the discipline of mechanical engineering. The goals of the course are to excite students about the field of mechanical engineering early in their careers, introduce basic mechanical engineering concepts in an integrated way, provide a link to the basic physics and mathematics courses, and present design and problem‐solving skills as central engineering activities. These goals are met through a combination of real‐world engineering examples, classroom demonstrations, and hands‐on experience in assignments and laboratories. Over the eleven semesters that this course has been taught, teams of first‐year students have designed and assembled energy conversion mechanisms using miniature steam engines and Meccano sets to drive a mobile vehicle or to generate electricity for lighting a bulb. This paper describes the systematic process used to design this course and emphasizes this process of carefully integrating lectures with classroom demonstrations, laboratory experiments and hands‐on projects to encourage students' active learning.