2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The study aims to integrate entrepreneurial mindset, bio-design, and art into a rapid prototyping course during the duration of its semester long project. The author has been employing construction toy design as one of his project assignments over the years, including industrial design aspects. However, through a collaborative effort, the project had to be modified to reflect the new aim. Thus, student groups were asked to design a product (possibly a fastener, a light fixture, or a construction toy) with 4-6 components based on the idea of biomimicking climbing plants. The design was expected to have an obvious art component via use of industrial design, also including aesthetics, colors, or movements. Students followed the steps of the product development process with additional assignments being interjected into the regular project workflow. These assignments included a “Business Thesis Template” a document that defines the business idea or the problem being addressed, a “Customer Discovery Interview Planning and Preparations Form” to get feedback on the proposed idea by surveying potential customers, followed by “the Patent Search Assignment Form” to investigate the patentability of the business idea. The students were also tasked to reflect on their effort by completing a “Metacognitive Reflection Assignment” on three distinct aspects: entrepreneurial mindset, bio-design, and art. Three groups were formed and three designs were selected by these groups, a climbing plant shaped decor that diffracts natural sunlight, an LED garden sign used in lighting a garden during nights to mark poison ivy spots, as well as a ground stake with a climbing plant inspired mechanism aiding its anchoring function. Besides the elements mentioned above, students also had to complete an intellectual property (IP) assignment (of copyrights, trademarks, and patents where they studied each IP type, their applications, and durations). They were also given information on the start-up incubators available in the region in addition to the art standards from different educational levels. This study details the development process, also includes student feedback and the authors’ reflections for future improvements.