Browse > Article

Startup Engineering Education Programs in Niigata University: How to Integrate Knowledge to Solve Engineering Problems  

Yamagiwa, Kazuaki (Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Niigata University)
Tanabe, Yuji (Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Niigata University)
Harada, Shuji (Department of Material Science and Technology, Niigata University)
Shimizu, Tadaaki (Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Niigata University)
Oka, Tetsuo (Education Center for Engineering and Technology, Niigata University)
Publication Information
Journal of Engineering Education Research / v.15, no.5, 2012 , pp. 8-13 More about this Journal
Abstract
Faculty of engineering, Niigata University has been executing start-up engineering education programs for the first-year students to educate his or her ability to solve engineering problems. They are divided into teams and tackle a task that they expect to easily accomplish. The expected results are hardly obtained. Then they try to seek the gap between the results and their knowledge. They analyze the phenomena and improve the approach. They evaluate the results of second trial and the effectiveness of the measures. That is, the project requires so-called PDCA cycles for students to solve engineering problems. The start-up engineering project is one of the compulsory subjects and seven departments have given the students several tasks based on their technicality. The students exchange their knowledge, ideas and learn how to use knowledge to solve the problems. Their reports and questionnaire survey proved that the projects are highly effective to improve his or her ability to solve engineering problems and give them strong motivation to learn engineering. We introduce the some tasks and the outcomes of the projects set by seven departments; mechanical and production engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, information engineering, biocybernetics, chemistry and chemical engineering, civil engineering and architecture, and material science and engineering.
Keywords
Start-up engineering education; Engineering design; Self-evaluation;
Citations & Related Records
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 K. Yamagiwa, Y. Tanabe, S. Harada, T. Shimizu and T. Oka, Start-up engineering programs for first year students, Proc. 12th WCCEE, Singapore, 345-352 (2010).