| Engineering education in North America has experienced a paradigm shift in recent years resulting in a required focus on design and related non-technical skills. In response, the Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Department at the University of Calgary has implemented a senior capstone design course that utilizes “real” projects from industry and the community. This pedagogical approach deviates from the familiar in that students take responsibility for both the progress of their design projects and their learning. As such, a recipe-book approach to teaching design is of limited effectiveness.; This thesis describes the development and implementation of a toolbox-approach to design learning not unlike that employed in traditional craft learning. With this approach, students are encouraged to seek out, evaluate and apply information or practices to help advance their design projects, hopefully establishing practices they will carry forward into industry. An important component of this approach is the Toolbox—a collection of stand-alone, implementation focused resources to be applied as appropriate to the needs of individual projects. |
