A Biomedical Engineering Design Experience From Freshman Year To Senior Year

This paper presents a methodology of integrating design throughout the engineering student’s years of study. Students have sufficient time to learn and achieve more in a design experience starting with a two credit freshmen course, continuing with one credit courses throughout the sophomore and junior years, and ending with two credit design courses in each term of the senior year. With sufficient sink time, students absorb and learn about the project objective, practice developing different solutions, and practice working in teams. Working on the same project throughout the design sequence, the students are learning to function as part of a design team and to be tolerant and respectful of individual team member differences. Additionally through this process student teams advance their design to final product levels. The teams prepare for and experience a series of design reviews, develop appropriate documentation, and apply techniques common in industry. The four year design experience relates directly to ABET outcomes such as: recognizing the need for life-long learning, developing professional skills, working productively in an engineering design team, and recognizing ethical, legal and social issues. Design course lecture content is related to issues the students can apply to their designs at their particular educational level. For example freshmen and sophomores learn about literature searching, keeping an engineering logbook, and conducting team meetings. Seniors learn about hazards associated with medical device design such as electrical, mechanical, radiological, and infection control issues. Additionally seniors learn about design for maintainability and reliability and codes, standards and regulations including FDA compliance issues as they apply to engineering design.