2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Statics, a foundational course in the Mechanical Engineering undergraduate degree program at our university is a lecture-based course. While active learning methodologies [1] have been employed in the course, to further enhance student learning outcomes, a project-based learning component was introduced in 2016. The project component is a team-based activity with 3-5 students in a team where students are tasked to create a physical setup (fixture) in which a statics concept can be demonstrated. While the project problem statement is open-ended, the overall size of the fixture (<2 cubic foot) and functional requirements are specified to the students. For example, the fixture must allow testing the concept in multiple configurations, so the setup is interactive in a live demonstration to the class. The project deliverables include a (i) proposal, (ii) critical design review and (iii) project presentation. The project activity fosters collaborative learning, and its corresponding student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. However, tasked with a physical project from a lecture course, students had to fabricate the fixture over a weekend at someone’s home or dorm room since the machine shop and other fabrication facilities on campus can be intimidating to sophomore students.
In this paper we present a facility that we have added in our department towards student success with these type of projects in a lecture course. The project workshop [2] concept in the department is to provide students with space and resources that they can use to fabricate such projects. The workshop contains light wood working tools, soft metals working tools, and 3D printers where minimal supervision is needed after the students’ complete shop safety trainings. These tools allow engineering students to construct the parts of their project or their entire project with their own materials. The project workshop contains no stored materials. As such, the project workshop demands engineering discipline from students. Students are required to design their fixture, develop a bill of materials, procure the materials needed, and use the tools in the workshop to fabricate their fixture. This is well-aligned with the deliverables in our statics class, which guide the students to be methodical and intentional about fabricating their fixture.
Students at our university in the statics course have had access to project workshop for two successive semesters. We present discussions based on students’ work who used our project workshop. Sample student projects are presented to give a flavor of the concepts tested in the statics class. In this paper we describe that such a safe and non-intimidating facility can be an excellent resource to support project-based learning in lecture courses.
References are excluded since this is a blind submission.