The risks of failure are to high to allow this knowledge base tobe acquired whileon the job. Some in academiaargue that design is not a task that universities should be involved in. The author proposes that this experience is best achieved in academia aspart of an engineering student's training. This allows the student to experience theentire process in a timeeffective low risk manner. Because of the low risk, students are free totry product conceptthat would not be tried in industry.
Students have an increased understanding of the application ofscience and maththrough design.
In experience baseddesign the students are given a project to design rather than hearingabout design. Figure 1 shows a student group testing theirdesign device during this type of course. A novel part ofthis approach was allowing students to see the physical implementation oftheir designs. This was a key experience for many of them. The students were able to gaugethe outcomeof their efforts by themselves as part of the testing process itself.