Handbook

In this course, you will experience first-hand one of the major things that engineers do: designing and building creative solutions to problems. You will learn to think the way that engineers think, coming up with reasonable solutions to problems despite being limited by budget, time and resources, the requirement to also meet environmental and social objectives and, of course, the limitations of the laws of physics. This will help you appreciate engineering design's central ideas as an on-time, on-budget and fit-for-purpose solution to a poorly specified, open-ended problem.
You will start to build critical skills for engineers that will be called upon repeatedly in your academic and professional lives, including concept development, critical thinking and evaluation skills, clear communication, research and information literacy skills and the skills involved in successfully functioning within a team environment to complete a given task.
A key part of the course is a design project. During the first week, you will select a project to complete from a list of possible options offered. Once you have joined a project, you will be assigned to a team of around 5-6 students during the second week. With this team, you will work to practically solve your design problem for the rest of the term.