2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work details a multi-level and multi-disciplinary team approach to advance an Engineering Grand Challenge project and serves to evaluate its effectiveness and performance especially regarding the team makeup and experience.

The project administration, logistics, and activities were built on the AggiE-Challenge program platform, an initiative within the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). With the overarching goal to engage engineering undergraduates at various levels (freshmen to senior) in high-impact multi-disciplinary research challenges, vertically-integrated project (VIP) teams were constructed in lieu of the typical one-on-one mentoring of students for a more realistic, meaningful and effective engagement. VIPs unite undergraduate education and faculty research in a team-based context, whereby students earn academic credits and research experience, while furthering discovery. The extended team that was evaluated comprised of multiple faculty and graduate student mentors guiding a large multi-level undergraduate student team spanning multiple engineering departments. The prominent challenge was on enhancing virtual reality (VR) and involved the incorporation of haptic feedback and VR to detail the environment for minimally invasive surgery training. The team was successful in not only generating the knowledge and tools pertinent to advancing the problem but also in developing functional prototypes to address various aspects of the grand challenge.

The evaluation efforts involved assessing the effectiveness of VIP teams in providing enriching research experiences as well as measuring student inclination and/or intent to pursue advanced STEM study. In this capacity, research questions were asked to elucidate how the construction of the team affects its performance, how VIP affect learning experiences differently as compared to traditional one-on-one student mentoring as well as students’ inclinations to pursue advanced STEM study and careers. On gathering information via surveys and interviews, conclusions were drawn that highlighted the benefits of constructing and deploying such teams in contrast to traditional one-on-one research mentoring of a student. In general, students showed significant growth under the categories of understanding engineering design, problem solving, and communication, besides positive impacts on their post-graduation plans.