The Use Of Mathematical Thinking To Deal With Uncertainty In A Capstone Design Course

In order to understand how engineering students deal with uncertainty in a normal design task, we studied a team of five industrial engineering students in a capstone class over the course of five months as they worked with professional engineers from a local company. The framework of mathematical thinking that guided this study as we investigated how these students engaged in mathematical thinking while they designed. We found that two aspects of mathematical thinking were most often used when the students were dealing with uncertainty in their design: problem solving strategies and the use of social resources. These findings have the potential to influence how engineering educators integrate engineering science and real-world design tasks.