PIs: Sam Easterling, Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michael O'Brien, Associate Professor, Architecture

Project Goals or Needs Addressed: "We were trying to do two things, integrate a design experience across grade levels…vertical integration…providing an opportunity for sophomores and juniors to participate with seniors…the majority of the work being seniors…. And then horizontal [integration]… I suppose the principle objective was to get the architects and the structural engineers together and then deal with as we could with the vertical integration."
Project Grants and Expenditures:
$20,000 (year 6), faculty wages, graduate assistants



 


Faculty met with the 25 students taking the course approximately once every three weeks in a large group. Faculty also met with student teams weekly while they worked on their projects. Informal written and oral progress reports were taken as students worked on projects. Sophomore and junior-level students participated in the design process less than the seniors, but conducted some tasks such as drawing designs.

This course was held once, but had minimal enrollments at other times and was canceled. It was suggested that engineering students may have been reluctant to take this elective design course on top of their other required design courses.