100 course this year's Outstanding Practice Award from the Division of Instructional Development of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. The national award is given annually to honor exemplary instructional materials or systems. Two additional pluses of the project, according to Richey, are its innovative instructional strategy which is replicable on a broad scale, and the general affordability of the project, both of which make it a more appealing potential curriculum addition for the typical university. Student involvement and teamwork aspects of Penn State's project were especially noted during the evaluations, and awarding this course was seen as a way of highlighting student work. The course introduces students to an engineering approach to problem-solving, with strong references to basic science and math skills.
Students also test and evaluate design ideas by building working prototypes.
The design products are the total of at least thirty hours of in-class, group oriented work, one third of the course. Several of the design products are sponsored by industry. The project has also been supported by Penn State's Center for Academic Computing.