Breaking the Tyranny of the Semester: A Phase-Gate Sprint Approach to Teaching Colorado School of Mines Students Important Engineering Concepts, Delivering Useful Solutions to Communities, and Working on Long Time Scale Projects

Abstract

-The Colorado School of Mines (CSM) hosts the oldest HumanitarianEngineering (HE) minor program in the USA, originally started in 2004. During the 2012/2013 academic year the program was overhauled and new curriculum was introduced. Several deficiencies in senior capstone courses were noted including poor quality of designs resulting from the tyranny of the rigid semester schedule; students focusing on the technical aspects of a design project while largely ignoring the social, financial, and sustainable aspects; and a loss of knowledge between academic terms due to turnover of students. These were addressed in the development of the Projects for People course through several methods. The course has been offered for two semesters and will be offered in multiple sections in the immediate future. Students, CSM faculty, and NGO partners have all found the course to be useful and rigorous, and the HE faculty have found the resulting designs to be of high quality.

The Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Systems Engineering Approach to Mission Engineering Education through Capstone Projects

“…Before progressing from one stage of a capstone project to the next, capstone teams must successfully complete specific milestones and deliverables. This is similar to how some humanitarian engineering capstone and project courses at other universities are run [19]. However, one significant difference is that students are required to complete the entire project to receive a passing course grade.…”

“…However, one significant difference is that students are required to complete the entire project to receive a passing course grade. Dean and Van Bossuyt [19] advocated that a phase gate and sprint approach be used but with the ability for students to never move past a phase gate during the class if they are not yet ready to move forward. In the case of NPS capstone projects, this is not practical and would prevent students from having the full capstone experience.…”

The Peugeot Center Model and Mentoring Explored through a Case Study of the Design and Installation of a Potable Water System in Guatemala with ADICAY

“…Though originating at Purdue, the model has been expanded to more than 30 universities and multiple studies have shown a clear impact of the EPICS program on student development and learning (Oakes et al 2019, Pierce, Oakes, and Abu-Mulaweh 2019, Zoltowski and Oakes 2014, Huff, Zoltowski, and Oakes 2016. Other commendable programs have benefited from service learning or humanitarian engineering projects with the support of faculty advisors or organizations like Engineers Without Borders (EWB), Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW), or Engineering World Health (EWH) (Sacco and Knight 2015, Malkin and Calman 2015, Dale et al 2015, Pinnell et al 2015, Dean and Bossuyt 2015, Colledge 2015, Bixler et al 2015, Sandekian, Chinowsky, and Amadei 2015, Ermilio, Clayton, and Kabalan 2015, Bratton 2015, Duff et al 2015. As with any complex problem, these programs have encountered obstacles along the way including failed partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), frequent chapter turnover, institutional hurdles that create unnecessary bureaucracy, and a lack of commitment from professionals (Lewis 2015, Suhr et al 2015, 2013.…”

Engagement in Practice: Better Preparing Students for Community-Engaged Engineering by Restructuring an Academic Program, Minor, and Curriculum

“…In many cases, the project solutions gravitated toward a technical innovation, thus subverting the relational and contextual element [4]. Students were lacking the skills required to overcome assumptions and properly consider the challenges presented by community partners within the duration of a semester [5]. This often resulted in negative to neutral results for community partners, unaware or frustrated students, and a lack of applicable solutions [6].…”