Given the all-pervasiveness of Systems thinking -which consists of thinking about things as systems- as a way of reasoning, in this work we will describe its application to make an interpretation of how to conceive and design a final year CDIO capstone course. Both the student teamwork structure as well as the complex engineering system itself addressed in the project are described in terms of entities, links, form and function, thereby pointing out their formal and functional interaction. The ultimate goal of the Systems thinking perspective is, given the necessary ingredients, to try maximizing the chances of the emergence of a fruitful capstone course, namely a culminating project that yields a set of students qualified to CDIO complex engineering systems.
Proceedings of the 9th International CDIO Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 9 – 13, 2013.