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This Work-In-Progress paper discusses the experience within a freshman engineering design course in which students are asked to conceive, design, implement and operate a Six-Section Rube Goldberg machine. Often in the first year of an engineering curriculum there is a project based class designed to introduce students to, motivate students about, and retain students within the engineering discipline. They also begin to instill skills such as: 1. Team Work 2. Systems Engineering through Experimentation, Testing, and CAD & physical Modeling 3. Written Communication 4. Oral Communication 5. Time Management 6. Team Management At this institution, project based classes allow students to develop these skills and expressly enforces two avenues of technical communication: between and among groups. Constant communication, between and among groups, is included to simulate a workplace environment where workers are not limited to their singular work groups, but to share their designs, knowledge, and ideas with the other participating groups within a project. This is accomplished by asking a class to conceive, design, implement, and operate (CDIO) a Six-Section Rube Goldberg machine (a system with many complicated steps to accomplish a simple task – an inefficient design). Each of the groups (~4 students per group) are required to conceive, design, implement and operate their own 15 step Rube Goldberg section with a final task of all 6 sections working as a homogeneous machine. In previous implementations of the course, the CDIO process was used, however projects rotated between teams at the end of each project phase. While enforcing technical communication between teams, it came at the cost of overall class atmosphere and group/project success. The CDIO class design allows for prescribed opportunities for technical communication though written reports and oral presentations, but rotating the teams also allowed the students to divest themselves from the project at the end of each phase. Combining the CDIO process with a new project was necessary. Connecting six Rube Goldberg Machines allows for individual success of a team’s own project and still asks teams to communicate to ensure success for the whole class as all six sections come together to create the Six-Sections Rube Goldberg machine. This paper discusses the results of a carefully crafted project in a freshman engineering design course that maintains multiple avenues of technical communication (between and among groups) through reports, presentations, and technical graphics. It also provides students opportunities to learn time and team management. Finally, the project requires students to proceed through a rigorous design process while allowing for creativity within the design. The irony of the fact that typically Rube Goldberg Machines are designed to do a simple task through an inefficient process is well understood and accepted; engineers should search for efficient designs and solutions to problems. Overall, the project was warmly received. We will also touch on plans to assess the impact of freshman design course and the student end-of-semester comments with longitudinal studies.

Work in Progress: Oh ... The Irony (A Six-Section Rube Goldberg Machine for Freshman Engineering Design)