Hex-Oid Habitat Design Challenge: Teaching Engineering Design in a Multidisciplinary Role-play Scenario

Within the ocean engineering program at the U.S. Na val Academy, formal design instruction is provided in our introductory design course, EN461, a precursor to capstone design. A useful instructional module towards this purpose is the He x-Oid Habitat Design Challenge that provides students with a multidisciplinary design-team exper ience involving multiple phases of the design process and an opportunity to refine technical comm unication skills both within and external to the design team. Working in teams of 4-6, each tea m member is assigned a distinct role, e.g., Architect, Buoyancy Engineer, Foundation Engineer, tc., and each is provided a ‘skill primer’ that briefly describes their experience base, crite ria and data pertinent to the design effort, and a set of strategies relevant to their role. The team goal is to design a habitat consisting primarily of hexagonal prisms of differing weights and functi onal characteristics that is aesthetically appealing, functionally sound, sufficiently buoyant , foundation adequate, and cost efficient. Implementation of the module requires approximately two-weeks of classroom time during which students develop creative concepts, experienc e design team interactions, exercise their decision making skills, engage in conflict resoluti on, and apply various computational tools of a design engineer. During the final class session, e ach team presents its habitat design to a panel of volunteer faculty members and classmates who cri tique both the design and the team’s oral presentation. This paper provides insights into the project taski ng; the roles and responsibilities of the different design engineers; and the basic engineering conside rations and computations required of the final design. It addresses typical conflict issues arisin g among team members and the means to their resolution, and presents elements – both positive a nd negative – of the typical team presentation. Achievement of project learning goals and a summary of assessment results are also discussed.