This paper describes the process of active learning in connection with the construction of concept cars by the students at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The concept of the ecocars is to develop a car where the top priority is energy efficient solutions in order to make the car run as far as possible on one litre of gasoline energy equivalent. In parallel the idea of the wind turbine cars is to design-build vehicles for driving directly against the wind, powered by a wind turbine. The projects are applied in an elective course for bachelor students with approximately 2 years of experience. However, students are also associated from other student activities like bachelor and master projects. In order to carry over knowhow from previous years, which is essential to the success of the whole process, some “older” students are encouraged to participate in the activities for more than one year. This also gives the students a possibility to evaluate new ideas that was generated during testing and operation of the developed cars.
The project is carried out over 2 semesters (1 year) for the ecocar and 1 semester for the wind turbine car giving a basis for a detailed comparison between two projects containing similar teaching elements although with different origin. Both projects contains all 4 elements of the CDIO1 principle in one teaching project, i.e. conceiving the engineering elements of the cars, the design-build phase and finalizing at internationally organized races with the cars.
The project has been running repeatedly for 6 years and has been implemented more and more smoothly in the teaching program at DTU. The organization of the projects is a very essential task for a successful outcome and a very important learning process in itself. Experiences from the projects will be compared and described in details in the paper focusing on the development and evaluation of the teaching and active learning processes observed over the years.