Designing CDIO Capstone Projects: A Systems Thinking Approach

Designing CDIO Capstone Projects: A Systems Thinking Approach

E. Alarcón, E. Bou, A. Camps, R. Bragós, A. Oliveras, J. Pegueroles, et al, et al (2013).  Designing CDIO Capstone Projects: A Systems Thinking Approach. 9.

 

Given the all-pervasiveness of Systems thinking -which consists of thinking about things as systems- as a way of reasoning, in this work we will describe its application to make an interpretation of how to conceive and design a final year CDIO capstone course. Both the student teamwork structure as well as the complex engineering system itself addressed in the project are described in terms of entities, links, form and function, thereby pointing out their formal and functional interaction. The ultimate goal of the Systems thinking perspective is, given the necessary ingredients, to try maximizing the chances of the emergence of a fruitful capstone course, namely a culminating project that yields a set of students qualified to CDIO complex engineering systems.

 

Proceedings of the 9th International CDIO Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 9 – 13, 2013. 

 

 

Authors (New): 
Eduard Alarcón
Elisenda Bou
Adriano Camps
Ramon Bragós
Albert Oliveras
Josep Pegueroles
Elisa Sayrol
Ferran Marqués
Pages: 
9
Affiliations: 
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain
Keywords: 
systems thinking
collaborative systems thinking
Capstone projects
Teamwork
engineering curriculum
Year: 
2013
Reference: 
E. Crawley “Systems thinking”, tutorial short course, Proceedings of the 7th International CDIO Conference, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, June 20 - 23, 2011 : 
Twomey C., and Rhodes, D. H., “Systems Thinking as an Emergent Team Property: Ongoing research into the enablers and barriers to team-level systems thinking” IEEE International Systems Conference. Montreal, Canada. 2008 : 
R. Bragós, E. Alarcón, A. Camps, J. Pegueroles, J. Sardà, E. Sayrol Design of the Advanced Engineering Project Course for the third year of Electrical Engineering at Telecom BCN, UPC Barcelona. Proceedings of the 8th International CDIO Conference, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, July 1 - 4, 2012 : 
Caroline Marie Twomey Lamb, “Collaborative Systems Thinking: An exploration of the mechanisms enabling team systems thinking”, PhD dissertation, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sept 2009. : 
J. Sterman. Business Dynamics: Systems thinking and modeling for a complex world. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 2000. : 
N. Cooke et.al. Advances in Measuring Team Cognition. In E. Salas and S. Fiore, editors, Team Cognition, chapter 5, pages 83–106. American Psycho-logical Association, Washington, DC, 2004.: 
S. Beder. Beyond Technicalities: Expanding engineering thinking. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 125(1):12–18, January 1999. : 
J. Hackman and G. Oldham. Work Redesign. Organization Development. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1980: 
E. Alarcón, “The pivotal role of design in CAS”, CAS workshop on future directions of education in Circuits and Systems, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, Workshop on Education, 2008, Seattle: 
R. Hofstadter, “Analogy as the Core of Cognition” in The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science, Dedre Gentner, Keith J. Holyoak, and Boicho N. Kokinov (eds.).MIT Press, 2001, pp. 499-538. : 
N. Wiener, “Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas”, MIT Press, 1993: 
Claude Shannon, “Creative Thinking”, transcription of talk at Bell Labs, March 20, 1952. : 
Sanjoy Mahajan, “Street-Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving”, MIT Press 2010 : 
B. Richmond. Systems Thinking: Critical thinking skills for the 1990s and beyond. System Dynamics Review, 9(2):113–133, 1993. : 
Go to top
randomness