Pixel International Conferences

Mechanical engineers design, build, and test mechanical devices such as tools, engines, machines and structures. They should have specific hard skills including technical knowledge and abilities that can be learned or acquired through formal education and training programs. These skills can be clearly defined, evaluated and measured. Additionally, mechanical engineers should also have soft skills such as strong analytical and critical thinking, leadership and communication skills. These skills are very difficult to teach, to evaluate and, even more, to define because the perception of what is a soft skill can differ depending on the context. What is clear is that besides technical skills or requirements that are perfectly defined for a mechanical engineer, there are some other essential or additional skills that should be developed in our students to succeed in an engineering professional context. These are, without being exhaustive: critical thinking, complex problem solving, creativity, teamwork capability, time management, persuasion, operation analysis, active learning, judgment and decision making, management of material resources, innovation minded and, of course, a set of communication skills. It is therefore fundamental to introduce educational tools at university level that contribute to develop these skills in a practical and continuous manner. Based on this statement, The Degree in Mechanical Engineering (DEM) at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili introduced in its curriculum a group of practical subjects called Design and Experimental Project (DEP), developed specifically for each degree course and inspired by the Open Courses developed by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The main objective of these subjects is to enhance and promote essential skills in the different disciplines where a Mechanical Engineer can develop their professional career. Therefore, each of these DEP subjects are Project-Based subjects that cover different tools and methods for designing and construction mechanical prototypes focused in different mechanical engineering disciplines: statics and dynamics of simple machinery (first degree course), structural mechanics (second course) and Machine Components (third course). In this study, we present our experience applying the methodology of Project Based Learning (PBL) to promote some essential skills in Structural Mechanics, the second course DEP subject of the DEM.

Keywords: Project Based Learning; Soft Skills; Mechanical Engineering; Structural Mechanics.

References:

[1] Frank, M., Lavy, I., Elata, D. “Implementing the Project-Based Learning Approach in an Academic Engineering Course”, Int. J. Tech and Design Ed, 13, 2003, 273-288.
[2] Mills, J. “A case of study of Project-based Learning in structural engineering”. Proceedings of 2002 American Society for Engineering Education. Session 2793, 2002, 7.15.1-17.