Engineering Grand Challenges Video Competition - A Project Learning Tool in a Cross-disciplinary Class

In 2007, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) began working with a marketing company to rebrand engineering and better communicate the importance of engineering to the public and potential future engineers. The resulting messages were 1) Engineers are creative problem solvers, 2) Engineers make a world of difference, 3) Engineering is essential to our health, happiness, and safety, and 4) Engineers help shape the future. In 2008, the NAE launched the Engineering Grand Challenges website. The fourteen grand challenges highlight key challenges facing modern society that reinforce the engineering messages of how engineers and their creative problem solving skills are essential to improving our world and shaping the future. The NAE kicked off its Engineering for You Too (E4U2) national video competition in order to highlight how engineering will create a more sustainable, healthy, secure and/or joyous world by addressing the NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering. The E4U2 project was a six week project assigned to the students in the cross-disciplinary class at Auburn University. The goals of the project were 1) To create awareness about the NAE grand challenges among the future engineering and business students and 2) To explore the feasible solutions for the chosen grand challenges and put it in simple way that a general audience can also understand the technology behind these potential solutions. The students were divided in six teams (4-5 students in each team) to make six two-minute educational videos. Each team was divided based on the DiSC personality assessment test and had a good mix of engineering and business students. The project involved aspects like researching potential solutions for the grand challenges, storytelling, script writing, and video production, editing and marketing. The project was reviewed and evaluated every two weeks and feedback was given on the videos by professional video creators and educators. The following topics were chosen by the teams to develop videos 1. Make Solar Energy Economical 2. Advanced Personalized Learning 3. Provide Energy from Fusion 4. Provide Access to Clean Water (chosen by two groups) 5. Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure Three teams made it to the final stage of the competition. Qualitative feedback was taken and the students liked this project as it was different from the regular class project and received very positive and encouraging reviews. This paper will review the process of implementation and evaluation of this video project in a cross-disciplinary setting. The results of the content analysis will also be discussed in the paper.