The course meets once a week for three hours, and is team-taught by two faculty members, one with background in materials science and the other with background in manufacturing and design. Students engage in hands-on activities to investigate the relationship between structure, properties and processing of materials. They use statistics for product description, tolerance, and properties.
Students also make final design project presentation.
Details of the course and results of student evaluation are described in the paper. Then they must be given rapid, accurate feedback on their performance. Finally, they need lots of practice to develop their skills. The laboratory period normally begins with a 20-minute presentation on the relevance of each week's activities and their relation to the design project, and on the tools that will be used for the period. Homework assignments are constructed to give students the opportunities to discuss and reflect on the results of laboratory investigations and their relevance to the design project.