In engineering education, making the link between theory and the process of designing and manufacturing practical applications is extremely important. In the previous decade our university performed a significant program reformation, providing more space for CDIO-oriented courses. In the 2nd bachelor in electronics engineering at Ghent University a project course is organized, where a team of five to seven students design and implement a particular electronic device. Each year another innovative topic is chosen; projects of the past years included a mechanically rotating LED display, a device for measuring movements of the spine, an ultrasound scanner, an intelligent solar charger, a MIDI controlled analog music synthesizer as well as a bat detector. Innovation is stimulated by letting the students determine which special features they want to add to their project. Feedback from the supervisors guides them in order to select realistic features. As a result, each group produces a design with substantially different specifications. The students are working on their project one day per week during a full semester. In their team, every student has a different task. We include the following job profiles: project manager, analog design engineer, digital design engineer, embedded software engineer, mechanical engineer, CAD (computer aided design) engineer. However, it is mandatory that every team member keeps overview over the complete project. The students hold meetings regularly, where they discuss the milestones and progress for their project. At these meetings a project planning is discussed and adjusted if necessary, using Gantt charts for better project management as well as for more overview. Due to the limited technical background of 2nd bachelor students, additional technical and scientific support is constantly provided by the supervisors. In the middle of the semester an intermediate peer assessment is performed. At the end of the semester, the results are presented orally, where all team members actively take part. Additionally, each team hands in a project report of about 30 pages. Furthermore, a final peer assessment is performed. The grading of the students is performed by the supervisors, relying on individual permanent evaluation during the semester, general and specific project output, quality of the report and presentation as well as the final peer assessment. However, the final peer assessment is only being used as an instrument to support the permanent evaluation. All stakeholders the past decade experienced these projects very positive. The students are highly motivated for the project and obtain good results as a team. At course evaluations, students regularly state that this project is the course where they learned the most in their educational career so far. The hands-on approach as well as the concentric learning and teamwork are highly appreciated. It is impressive how result-driven the students are, with near the end of the semester more and more people choosing to work overtime to get things working, like real engineers. The full paper will provide more in-depth information about the description of the project assignments, the evaluation methods and the results of course evaluations performed by the students.
Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016