2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Introduction and motivation:
This Work in Progress paper describes the development of a custom AI-powered project
management tool designed to assist students in project-based engineering courses with effective task distribution and management. Project-based courses are a common feature in many engineering programs, ranging from first-year design courses to final year capstone projects and beyond [1]. They are crucial to the engineering curriclum, as they help students develop their project management – one of the graduate attributes outlined by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) – skills among many others [1], [2]. However, with the demanding nature of engineering programs, students often face challenges in managing and distributing tasks, particularly in the upper years where their schedules are less streamlined compared to the more uniform first-year programs.
Methods:
This study develops a tool that aims to alleviate this challenge by breaking down complex
projects into manageable sub-tasks and optimizing task assignments based on team members' skills and availability. In doing so, it streamlines the planning phase of projects, allowing students to focus more on executing design tasks. This study will assess the tool’s impact on team efficiency, task completion, and stress levels among students in a project-based engineering course, comparing users of the tool with a control group.
Results:
The study evaluates the effectiveness and impacts by conducting a survey among students enrolled in a final year project-based course at a large Canadian university. Student experiences are compared between groups who used the tool to manage their projects and those in a control group who did not use it. Initial results show positive effects on team collaboration, project planning, and execution stages, with the AI tool facilitating smoother task delegation and reducing time spent on planning. Future work will refine the tool’s features based on student feedback and explore its application in various engineering design courses, including final year capstone projects.