Collaborative Efforts In Engineering And Technology Education

Over the last two years, Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Aviation Technology (AT) students at Purdue University have been collaborating and competing in several aviation related design-build projects. This paper will describe three such projects: The Personal lifting vehicle (PLV), the lighter than air vehicle (Blimp), and the Hovercraft. Elements of collaboration, competition, and design-build strategies were utilized in an effort to increase student motivation. In the first project students of ME and AT worked together to design and build a Personal Lifting Vehicle (PLV); a prototype was built but the team was unable to satisfactorily resolve some control problems with the vehicle. For the second project a design was chosen that could more realistically be achieved, and the effort was to culminate in a race between the two design blimps. The element of competition greatly improved the motivation of the students and both teams successfully constructed and raced the 12 feet long radio controlled blimps. For the third project one team of ME students and a combined team of AT and ME students competed. The teams were tasked with the design and manufacture of a full-scale one-person hovercraft. Both teams successfully built a hovercraft, but only the hovercraft of the combined AT/ME team was tested. The ME hovercraft was not tested due to safety concerns. These projects have created considerable interest among faculty members from other departments within the University, some of who have expressed a desire to participate in future projects of the type. Suggestions have also been made that collaborative competitions might be conducted in the future between teams from Purdue University and other universities here and abroad.