T2-C: Implementing ASME Vision 2030 in a New Mechanical Engineering Program

Presenter Information

Michael Reynolds, University of West Florida

Location

Bill France C

Start Date

5-3-2018 1:45 PM

Comments

In August 2016, the University of West Florida started a new Mechanical Engineering program. The program is the first in the country to be started from the ASME Vision 2030 document. ASME Vision 2030 was a national study to recommend changes to Mechanical Engineering education. The key recommendations of the study include the encouragement of more practicebased faculty, increased curricular flexibility, increased student practice-based learning, a greater emphasis on professional skills, and greater diversity among students and faculty. This paper outlines the ASME Vision 2030 and discusses how it was implemented at the University of West Florida. One of the major points of ASME Vision 2030 was to create rich practice-based design experience for students. To address this, the Mechanical Engineering program created a series of four semester courses that lead into a senior level Capstone course. Students form multidisciplinary teams of different levels on the same project. Thus, students can have up to six semesters of design experience. But there are a number of challenges to creating teams of students at different levels and it can be difficult to assess important learning outcomes using project based learning. The approach can also put a lot of demands on faculty and be difficult to administer. Any program that wishes to create a broader design/build experience should be able to gain insight from our experiences. This paper addresses many of the difficulties we experienced in the first year of the program and how we have addressed them. This paper discusses how the program is trying to meet other key aspects of ASME Vision 2030.