A Scalable Course Project to Accommodate Academic Variation

This work in progress (WIP) describe a course project for freshman engineering course to accommodate students’ academic variation. Freshman engineering students present a variety of challenges, including differences in preparation and motivation. At Grand Valley State University there is a first semester course entitled EGR 106 Engineering Design I. Topics in this course include a multi-disciplinary introduction to basic electronics, programming Arduino hardware in C, computer aided design (CAD), computer numerical control (CNC), and basic manufacturing knowledge. Throughout the course the material is taught in interwoven threads that are integrated with a final course project, a robot. In previous semesters the project was a ‘sumo bot’ that the students design, built, debugged, and the competed against their classmates. By definition a competition has a winner and many ‘non-winners’. While this recognizes excellence it can demoralize otherwise good students. A solution was developed to encourage student excellence while allowing more students to participate in a meaningful way. The competition was divided into multiple events with the requirement that a team must participate successfully in at least one event to receive a passing grade in the project. Winning an event would lead to better grades and limited bragging rights. Student teams that won or placed well in multiple events were ranked as overall winners and may earn extra credits. This tiered structure allowed teams with limitations to perform well, but encouraged the high achieving teams to stretch. The paper outlines the various events in our informally named ‘Robot Olympiad’. The approaches of the games are discussed and how these resulted in a recognized and genuine successes. In addition, the method eliminated the need for hollow praise for middling teams, and made poor results stand out.