The Engineering Design Challenge (Synthesis Lectures on Engineering)

The Engineering Design Challenge addresses teaching engineering design and presents design projects for first-year students and interdisciplinary design ventures. A short philosophy and background of engineering design is discussed. The organization of the University of Wyoming first-year Introduction to Engineering program is presented with an emphasis on the first-year design challenges. These challenges are presented in a format readily incorporated in other first-year programs. The interdisciplinary design courses address the institutional constraints and present organizational approaches that resolve these issues. Student results are summarized and briefly assessed. A series of short intellectual problems are included to initiate discussion and understanding of design issues. Sample syllabi, research paper requirements, and oral presentation evaluation sheets are included.

Dr. Charles W. Dolan is the first permanent H. T. Person Chair of Engineering at the University of Wyoming. He received his BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and his Masters and Doctorate in Civil Engineering from Cornell University. Dr. Dolan has over 20 years of design experience as a consulting engineer and an additional 25 years of teaching experience. His design projects include the original people mover guideway at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, the Detroit downtown people mover guideway, the Walt Disney World monorail, and the conceptual design of the Vancouver British Columbia Skytrain and the monorail running down the spine of the Palm Island in Dubai. He has taught at Cornell University, the University of Delaware, and has been involved in teaching classes at Seattle University and the University of Washington prior to joining the faculty at the University of Wyoming. The H. T. Person Chair is the first endowed chair at the University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Applied Science and focuses on undergraduate education. For over a decade Dr. Dolan has developed the engineering design challenges for the first-year Introduction to Engineering course and for a number of years he taught interdisciplinary senior design projects. In addition to conducting interdisciplinary senior design projects, Dr. Dolan is actively engaged in capstone design courses for civil and architectural engineers with a focus on concrete and prestressed concrete structures. He teaches courses on Society and Technology for the University Honors Program. He chaired the UW Read, first-year common reading committee, and served as Department Head and on Tenure and Promotion committees. Dr. Dolan is co-author of the book Design of Concrete Structures with David Darwin and Arthur H. Nilson and serves on the American Concrete Institute Committee 318 Building Code for Concrete Structures. He conducts research on the innovative use of prestressed and precast concrete structures and the use of fiber reinforced polymers for strengthening concrete structures. In his research capacity he has served on National Science Foundation committees and edited and contributed to several volumes of work on FRP applications and the durability of FRP strengthening systems and authored numerous technical papers.