Introducing First Year Students To Engineering, Economics, And Social Responsibility: Ada Compliance As A First Project

Exploring Engineering is a first semester required course for all 200 first-year engineering students at Bucknell University. Last year, the course was modified into a format consisting of four project-driven units, with the middle two being student-elected topical seminars of approximately 25 students, and the first and last being taught to the entire class as a large lecture. This paper describes the reworking of the first unit of the course to include a design project focused on making the university more accessible for persons using wheelchairs. The main learning objectives for this project were to have students 1) Use the engineering design process 2) Practice teamwork skills 3) Practice oral and written communication skills 4) Apply math skills 5) Relate economic and other social considerations to engineering design 6) Produce a design for a real customer and finally 7) Develop a greater sensitivity to transportation issues faced by wheelchair users. The Accessibility Project replaced a project in which students designed a park, which had been satisfactorily achieving goals 1-5 for several years. However, it was felt that student and faculty interest could be heightened by altering the project to one that would perform a useful service to the university community. In the Accessibility Project, teams of three students were assigned two points on campus, at least one of which was known to be currently inaccessible to wheelchair. Students then generated at least four possible alternative accessible routes between those points, and suggested and priced all improvements required to make those routes accessible. Students were given background on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which specifies the characteristics of “accessible” paths, access to various measuring tools, and wheelchairs. At the end of the project, students presented their work in both oral and written form to the Bucknell ADA Committee, which will consider their suggestions for implementation on campus. According to student evaluations, the project was successful in achieving all of its goals, particularly in heightening student sensitivity to issues facing wheelchair users, scoring 4.7 on a Lickert 5-point scale.