2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

There is a critical gap in engineering education research connecting familial support to the development of engineering identity in postsecondary settings, particularly for first-generation students as they transition into young adulthood. Current works highlight the importance of familial support reported through student perspectives, however there are few initiatives that actively engage family members in engineering experiences. This paper introduces a work-in-progress study of a family-inclusive engineering workshop for current engineering students and their families at San Francisco State University, a Minority Serving Institution (MSI). This paper reports on the details of the two-hour workshop, including the usage of LittleBits by Sphero, which aim to facilitate authentic, hands-on, design activities that simulate real‐world engineering design tasks for students and their families. The paper also reports on preliminary data from researcher observations of the workshops and pre and post surveys.

Preliminary results indicate that the workshop has the potential to explore familial support systems through collaborative engineering design activities. Qualitative observations show that the workshops can encourage collaboration between families, that the low-stakes design problem can allow for play and lower creativity inhibitions, and that design divergence was impacted by the type of family relationships type, such as parents, cousins, or friends.