2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This engagement in practice paper summarizes the development and implementation of a collaborative partnership between a local organic egg farm and Western Washington University’s Engineering & Design program. The objective is to engage students in a project-based design experience while fostering meaningful community involvement. Over the past 18 months, this collaboration gave students the opportunity to apply technical and business management skills to improve the farm’s economic success. Student teams, in direct collaboration with the farm owner and staff, worked on identifying, narrowing, and focusing on potential projects. Once the projects were identified, teams developed problem solutions using the engineering design process. One team explored alternative chicken bedding options and distribution to benefit the well-being of chickens and cut labor cost. A second team developed a system to monitor egg collection and improve delivery processes. This paper discusses the benefits and lessons learned from the student’s perspective as they engaged in the open-ended projects. Discussion highlights the impact this experience has on encouraging independent work through open-ended tasks to achieve a goal. Although an increase in structure would have benefited the groups, working through problems independently aided growth of student research skills and their ability to apply the engineering design process. Overall, this project was a positive educational experience for students and helped them learn how to structure a research project and what role engineering can play in supporting their community. The opportunity to conduct research in developing a solution with real-world impact was a strong motivating factor for students over the project's duration and proved beneficial to their learning.