2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper looks at engineering design education through an analogy of maritime navigation. The analogy of a journey to a destination while avoiding perils along the way provides insights into the design process. In modern maritime navigation vessels rely on maps and instrumentation to accurately determine their position as they navigate to a known destination. The analogy in design is defined specifications that provide details on the desired endpoint and project metrics that mark milestones on the journey. If the main goal of design is viewed as a product this is a valid analogy. However, some design projects are less specified, and the ending destination may be envisioned in a general sense without being able to be specified or located. Projects that intersect broader societal needs—design for social justice or design embedded in communities—are of this form. Prior to accurate maps and navigational technology mariners utilized dead reckoning—a heuristic-based method—to make long ocean voyages. Rather than accurately locating oneself with respect to a defined destination dead reckoning relies on three heuristics: know your starting direction, hold a steady course and estimate the distance traveled, and know when you get near your destination.

This paper analyzes student artifacts from three courses in a five-course design sequence at a mid-Atlantic private university to explore how students transition from specification-based design to being able to navigate ill-defined design challenges in a heuristic-driven manner. By reducing scaffolding over time, the three design courses enable students and teams to develop key skills needed for ‘design navigation’ in the space where engineering intersects broader societal needs. Key aspects include developing student agency, scaffolding design-relevant skills, and emphasizing problem scoping.