Multi-Disciplinary Design Activity for Undergraduate and Graduate Engineering Students

This paper describes a project with common equipment that was adapted and offered to both an undergraduate and a graduate-level course with learning outcomes tailored specifically to each group of students. This project is an immersive, multi-disciplinary engineering design activity with a focus on materials, solid mechanics, and instrumentation. The activity incorporates aspects of fundamental engineering theory, virtual predictive simulation, as well as physical testing and data collection. All of this was done in the context of a material selection and failure analysis of a piece of furniture (cantilever chair) which is a simplistic and recognizable device by the students. The project focusses on structural analysis of the chair under a variety of loading conditions, coupled with a virtual simulation model using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). FEA is utilized to identify critical regions of the structure which are prone to failure. The complexity, constraints, and provided resources of the model varied, depending on the specific implementation of the course. Finally, a physical test apparatus was constructed and used to generate experimental responses that the students were able to use to calibrate their predictive model and theoretical hand calculations. This activity was created initially for in-person instruction but was adapted for remote delivery during the pandemic. Both qualitative and quantitative data collected from 2nd year and graduate students indicated that the activity was effective in improving several forms of knowledge acquisition. This paper will discuss in detail how a common project platform was adapted for the two academic levels with evidence of its efficacy