Implementing an Entrepreneurial Mindset Design Project in an Introductory Engineering Course

At Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), freshman students begin their studies within their chosen major, typically taking an introductory engineering course specific to their discipline. For undecided engineering students, they have the option to start in a general engineering program to help them select a major. FIT has had great success using this general engineering model to improve student retention and time to graduation; however, improvement can be made in preparing students to be innovative, entrepreneurial-minded professionals. The purpose of this paper is to describe the activities focused on exposing students to the entrepreneurial mindset and preparing them for engineering careers. An introductory course in the General Engineering program comprises both a lecture and a lab component and includes a traditional project-based learning experience that spans the semester. The group project requires application of fundamental engineering skills to construct a mini-golf hole. Students are given a theme and a modest budget from which to build the product. While several variations of this project have been used in prior years, this year’s project is modified to incorporate components of entrepreneurial-minded learning. Students were tasked with interviewing potential mini-golf customers to create a valued entertainment experience within the budgetary, design, and manufacturing requirements. Students submitted a final project report, wherein they discussed the impact the entrepreneurial components had on their learning process. Overall, the mini golf freshman design project has been a large success. The students regularly mention it as one of the best experiences in the class on course evaluations. When surveyed at the end of the project, students reported exploring more than one engineering discipline during the project with exposure to Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical the most common majors stated. The students found communicating with their group members as one of the largest project challenges, but also one of the most important to ensure the success of the project. They also found the interview process very helpful during the early stages of their design process; however, rather than using the interview assignment to discover a market opportunity, students used interviews as a means for verifying design themes, aesthetics, and/or obstacles. Section 1: Introduction Academic engineering institutions strive to prepare students for the engineering profession. Typical engineering curriculum builds strong foundational skills in mathematics and science during the first two years of engineering education. Institutions vary on when students can elect to study an engineering discipline. Students often begin their engineering education in a specified a discipline. Other institutions offer an introduction to engineering fundamentals or general engineering course with students choosing a specific discipline after their first year. At Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), most students elect a discipline before matriculating. However, students are also given the option to enroll in an Introduction to General Engineering EGN 1000 course designed to expose students to various career disciplines, introduce fundamental engineering approaches, and create an awareness of the responsibilities of engineers to their profession and society. EGN 1000 replaces many of the discipline specific Introduction courses offered by the various engineering departments. The varied timing of when students choose an engineering discipline and the foundational focus on “core” curriculum of mathematics and science tend to limit freshman curricular opportunities introducing engineering concepts. First year courses that incorporate projects to build fundamental engineering skills while initiating students to the multidisciplinary nature of engineering offer excellent opportunities for entrepreneurial minded learning (EML). The Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) comprises over 1200 faculty members practicing entrepreneurial-minded learning. KEEN’s purpose is to graduate engineers who create personal, economic, and societal value through a lifetime of meaningful work. KEEN’s framework couples an entrepreneurial mindset with engineering skill set to accomplish this mission. Within the network, entrepreneurial mindset is often described as 3 C’s –curiosity, connections, and creating value. It is also demonstrated as a set of attitudes, motivations, expectations, and dispositions. Additionally, entrepreneurial-minded learning has also been described through three learning domains – affective factors, thinking patterns, and content knowledge and skills. While first year projects may not fully develop an entrepreneurial mindset, it is important to introduce students to these thinking patterns as early as possible in their academic engineering experience. First year projects incorporating making and value creation can be useful EML frameworks for shaping the necessary affective traits such as interests, motivation and values to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. EGN 1000 Intro to General Engineering is a unique course, comprised of undecided engineering students, with a variety of interests and career goals. The course is broken up into two lectures and one lab per week, covering a variety of engineering topics. The course has three learning objectives, with this paper focused on the second one: • To introduce you to various career disciplines in engineering and applied sciences. • To introduce you to fundamental approaches in engineering. • To create an awareness of the responsibilities of engineers to their profession. This objective is achieved through a semester-long group design and making project called MiniGolf at Panther Links. The mini-golf project serves as a first year curricular driven project requiring students to design and make a mini-golf hole. Students are introduced to fundamental engineering skills such as virtual design and microcontroller programming in the laboratory environment and the engineering design process in lectures, but then use these skills in a project that requires the design and manufacturing of their golf hole. The following sections describe this effort in greater detail. Section 2 covers a brief review of previous literature. Section 3 describes the methodologies used in this study. Discussions of the study’s results are included in Section 4, with conclusions presented in Section 5. Section 2: Literature Review Entrepreneurial-Minded Learning Active and collaborative instruction that encourages student engagement has shown to improve learning outcomes in all academic disciplines 6 including engineering. Entrepreneurial-minded learning (EML) is an extension of proven active and collaborative learning techniques that further emphasizes discovery, opportunity identification, and value creation for others. Founded on a framework of 3C’s – curiosity, connections, and creating value student learning outcomes include demonstrating a constant curiosity about the changing world and exploring a contrarian view of accepted solutions, integrating information from many sources to gain insight and assess and manage risk, and identifying unexpected opportunities to create value and persist through and learn from failure. In 2004, the National Academy of Engineering published “The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century” putting forth aspirations for the profession and a call for engineering educators to prepare students with both a strong foundation and a new knowledge that advances society and creatively applies technology with broad consideration. Many of the attributes used to describe the engineer of the future include qualities associated with creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Relevant entrepreneurial skills include developing judgment to deal with novel and complex problems and pursuing opportunities of compelling value. Efforts to connect EML to educational assessment literature suggests considering three entrepreneurial learning domains -affective factors, thinking patterns, and content knowledge/skills. Affective factors such as self-efficacy – a belief that students can succeed in a value creating activity, an orientation or predisposition toward value creation (a desire to participate in creating new value), and habitual curiosity, a drive to understand how things work and how to make them work better. Thinking patterns derived from effectual logic can strengthen an entrepreneurial mindset by helping students leverage current knowledge resources and move through uncertainty by developing connections with other people and information in the pursuit of value creation. Common learning outcomes that demonstrate entrepreneurial knowledge include opportunity recognition, design iteration and prototyping, project management, strategic and financial planning, communication and presentation, leadership and ethics.