Interconnecting the mechanical engineering curriculum through an integrated multicourse model rocketry project

Abstract

Conventional undergraduate mechanical engineering curricula are split into topical tracks where, from the students' perspective, each track has limited interconnectivity or overlap with the others. To provide students a more coherent and cohesive view, we created and are delivering a multicourse curriculum-integrated engineering project that permeates and unifies five required classes within our undergraduate curriculum: 1) Freshman Design, 2) Dynamics, 3) Numerical Methods, 4) Fluid Mechanics, and 5) Thermodynamics. Students enrolled in these Rocket Project (RP) classes design, build, flight test, and analyze model rockets through hands-on exercises designed to enhance their awareness of topical connectivity across the mechanical engineering curriculum. These activities challenge students to work on different aspects of the same rocket project across all four years of their degree program. Our method is to redesign discrete laboratory exercises in five required mechanical engineering courses to integrate the rocket project within our existing curriculum without need for administrative changes (i.e., no course catalog changes). At the end of each RP class, students evaluate the rockets or flight simulations they created, analyze their design decisions and assumptions, and reflect on the impacts their choices had on rocket performance using distinct tools from the discipline of each course. Among the novel aspects of our approach is to expand beyond a two-course project sequence spanning just one academic year, a technique already used in many engineering curricula. Instead, our project is integrated into a multi-year five-required-course sequence with at least one course appearing in each year of the four-year mechanical engineering curriculum. We expect this approach to engender significant benefits to student learning. First, it promotes "spaced repetition", wherein learners encounter the same material in briefer sessions spread over longer time periods rather than the study of information in single blocks, as many engineering curricula do. Second, our approach allows students to realize the interdisciplinary nature of engineering problems, which discrete course subjects artificially isolate. Our approach enables students to apply what they have learned in previous classes to solve new aspects of the same project. Third, this project demonstrates the true iterative nature of engineering design and development wherein students reassess their modeling assumptions and perform necessarily more detailed experiments to validate their conceptual design changes. Both direct and indirect assessments are planned to evaluate our program. We will track the number of students enrolled in RP courses who join aerospace student organizations like AIAA and who take aerospace industry internships or jobs. We will also track the performance of student-built rockets in courses where rocket launches are part of the exercise. With respect to indirect assessment, we plan to use a survey taken at the end of each RP class in which the students evaluate several metrics including their own 1) interest, 2) understanding, 3) perceived workload, 4) appreciation of course interconnectivity, and 5) level of project enjoyment. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013.