Introduction to Engineering: A Freshman Year Multidisciplinary Engineering Course and Competition

Introduction to Engineering is a fall semester course taken by all freshman engineering students at Villanova University.The course is under the jurisdiction of the College of Engineering, which has departments in Chemical Engineering (ChE), Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Electrical and Computer Science Engineering (ECE) and Mechanical Engineering (ME).During the semester faculty from each department deliver two 50 minute lectures and one three hour laboratory.This format is designed to provide a general understanding of each engineering discipline, so that freshman can make an informed decision when selecting their engineering major in the spring.Time spent with each of the four engineering departments is then unified through an end of the-semester engineering competition.The competition is designed to foster teamwork in a multi-disciplinary open-ended problem solving environment, where students work in groups designing an electrochemically powered vehicle to traverse a race course that contains flat and inclined sections, as well as designing and constructing a bridge spanning a fictitious river.The engineering departments are represented in the competition as follows: ChE) provides power to the vehicle through an electrochemical reaction, ME) design tire size and gear ratios to maximize average vehicle speed over the race course, ECE) provide wiring and electronics between electrochemical reaction and vehicle motor, and CEE) design a three-dimensional popsicle stick bridge to span the fictitious river and for test-to-failure strength at the end of the competition.Teams are ranked using an aggregate score that considers aesthetics, vehicle speed and power, and bridge strength.The objective of this paper is to explain the lecture and lab content delivered during the time spent with each department, and provide a detailed description of the end of the semester engineering competition.