2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This GIFTS paper presents an interdisciplinary, hands-on design project that reimagines the traditional first-year mechanical engineering experience by incorporating principles of art, design, and creative exploration. Co-developed by faculty from mechanical engineering and arts, the project invites student teams to design and fabricate a dynamic, one-meter-long marionette that demonstrates core mechanical concepts, such as forces, moments, and equilibrium, through mechanisms like linkages, pulleys, or levers. Beyond technical functionality, the marionette challenge emphasizes aesthetic expression, storytelling, and visual impact, introducing students to ambiguity, play, and surprise within an engineering context. The project is conducted in a studio-like learning environment, more open, flexible, and exploratory than a traditional engineering lab, where students are encouraged to experiment with materials, engage with unfamiliar tools, and take creative risks. Rooted in the engineering design process but inspired by arts education and low-risk iteration, the activity fosters collaboration, material exploration, and process-based thinking. By blending analytical rigor with fun, childhood imagination, and expressive freedom, the project promotes active learning, systems thinking, and early professional identity formation within a welcoming and creatively charged space.

Motivation
Teaching statics to first-year students can present challenges, particularly in conveying abstract ideas like force vectors and torque in an intuitive and lasting way. These topics are often introduced with equations and diagrams but without a tangible connection to real-world systems. This marionette project was developed to address this pedagogical gap by offering students a meaningful and creative physical context in which to apply mechanical principles. The guiding idea was to make statics “come alive” by embedding it in a whimsical but technically constrained design task—building a marionette for a fictional arts festival. The project aims to motivate students by merging engineering analysis with artistic expression, encouraging engagement and intellectual ownership of concepts traditionally taught through textbook problems.

Objectives
This activity is designed with several interrelated educational goals:
• Conceptual Understanding: Help students internalize the principles of static equilibrium, force decomposition, and moment calculation through direct application.
• Design Thinking: Introduce the stages of the engineering design process, from problem definition to prototype testing, in a structured but flexible framework.
• Hands-On Prototyping: Provide experience working with physical materials, tools, and basic mechanical components within real-world constraints such as budget, weight, and available workspace.
• Teamwork and Communication: Develop collaboration, planning, and presentation skills through a group-based, peer-assessed project.
• Creative Confidence: Foster early engineering identity and problem-solving confidence by giving students permission to explore unconventional and artistic solutions to technical challenges.

Implementation Details
The assignment spans several weeks and is embedded into the broader Introduction to Mechanical Engineering course. Students work in teams of 3–4 to design a marionette that incorporates at least two functional mechanical joints. The puppet must measure approximately one meter in either height or length and be capable of expressive movement using manual actuation via strings or levers. Teams are given a budget of $75 and access to common makerspace materials and tools, including laser cutters, 3D printers, hot glue guns, and sewing machines.
The engineering design process is scaffolded in clearly defined stages:
1. Requirements Analysis: Students identify constraints including mechanical performance, cost, ergonomics, environmental impact, and cultural relevance.
2. Conceptual Design: Each team brainstorms 20+ design ideas, ranks them using a custom decision matrix, and selects a final concept.
3. Detailed Design: Students develop 2D sketches, system maps, and free-body diagrams to identify key forces and load paths. CAD models are also created.
4. Prototyping & Testing: Teams build physical prototypes, troubleshoot mechanical systems, and revise designs based on performance.
5. Final Presentation: Each team delivers a design presentation using storytelling techniques and demonstrates their marionette in a gallery-style showcase.

Assessment Methods
The project incorporates a variety of assessment mechanisms that capture students' technical understanding and their engagement in team-based design work. Technical rigor is evaluated through a comprehensive design report that includes free-body diagrams, force and moment calculations, and a detailed engineering rationale for material and joint selection. Functionality, originality, and visual appeal are assessed during a final public demonstration, where instructors, teaching assistants, and guest judges score each marionette based on predefined rubrics. To ensure individual accountability, the project utilizes CATME peer evaluations, allowing team members to reflect on one another’s participation, communication, and overall contributions. Additionally, students provide peer feedback to other teams during the presentations using the same rubric as the judges, promoting critical observation and mutual learning. Throughout the process, instructors guided structured formative feedback at key milestones, guiding student progress, addressing misunderstandings or logistical constraints, and ensuring that deliverables align with technical and educational goals.