Work in Progress: Building a Functional Cardiograph Over Four Semesters

In this paper, we present the first semester of a four-semester design project to build a functional cardiograph that estimates heart rate and respiratory rate. This set of project-based learning activities addresses industry’s complaint that students lack practical experience (“how devices are made/work”). The cardiograph project, including learning outcomes for the first semester and ABET student outcome for the entire project are discussed. We hypothesized that participating in these projects facilitates engagement in the course and Engineering Science major. Each learning outcome is assessed by the instructor using a custom rubric. In addition to student performance, we also consider how this project may support student engagement and retention via instructors’ reflections and student surveys. The findings demonstrated that the students were actively engaged in the project and appreciated the active learning approach. Students had minimal prior experience with complicated devices and had many concerns about completing the project. Based on faculty observations and students’ responses on surveys, students maintained engagement in the cardiograph project and experienced a sense of accomplishment, even when they did not successfully produce a working cardiograph.