2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

At North Carolina State University, the undergraduate thermodynamics course has been modified to include both fluid mechanics and heat transfer topics. As the first course in the thermal-fluids curriculum, it is critical that students are introduced to these subjects in a relatable way that inspires their curiosity in the concepts and in future courses. This re-design of the course has been an opportunity to focus on student-driven learning that sparks intrinsic motivation for students going forward in the curriculum.

The current study is a work-in-progress to determine the impact of this curriculum change. This paper explains how aspects of entrepreneurial minded learning have been used to create assignments with real-world applications that link thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. With their work, students demonstrated curiosity in the capabilities of each subject and solved problems that connected the subjects. The students’ work and feedback show that the assignments improved their understanding of these subjects. Insight is also provided regarding lessons learned by the instructor.