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Procedia CIRP 36 (2015) 177 – 181

CIRP 25th Design Conference Innovative Product Creation

Teaching mechanical design practice in academia

Kfir Cohena* and Reuven Katz a
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +972-77-887-2911; E-mail address: kc@technion.ac.il

Abstract

In many research universities, mechanical engineering (ME) curriculum does not include courses that teach ME students essential professional
knowledge needed to become a design engineer. Professional know-how is not regarded as an academic topic, although a mechanical designer
who will get a job in industry will need to apply this knowledge from his first day. Topics such as selecting mechanical elements (motors,
bearings, seals etc.) from a catalog or selecting a proper material or coating for a designed part, are rarely taught even in machine design
courses.
We believe that mechanical engineering students should learn practical skills and get basic design experience. To close this gap, we introduced
a new “Design and Manufacture Laboratory" for senior ME undergraduate students. The paper describes the laboratory course, students’
activities and design projects. The design projects performed in the lab, follow the learned design methodology and include design reviews and
appropriate documentation. The designed systems are produced, assembled and tested by each team.
In addition to the learned technical skills, "soft skills" are taught in the lab related to mechanical design that include: team work, self-
management, time management, communication skills and presentation skills. These soft skills are an essential tool for every mechanical
engineer who starts to work in the global and changing industrial world.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CIRP 25th Design Conference Innovative Product Creation.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CIRP 25th Design Conference Innovative Product Creation
Keywords: Mechanical design, Design laboratory, Soft skills in mechanical engineering;

1. Introduction To avoid investment in training and in order to increase

productivity, industry looks for engineers with some work
In order to prepare mechanical engineering students for experience, at least two to three years in industry. Therefore, it
industry needs, engineering schools developed courses which is a challenge for a ME graduate to get his first job without
focus on engineering practice, such as the Capstone courses having work experience. A way to avoid this first job
[1] and the Learning Factory [2]. entrance-threshold challenge, is to teach the students essential
Teaching in Mechanical Engineering (ME) departments is skills of engineering practices [4,5]. Students in research
focused on engineering science curriculum that does not universities understand this limitation, and are interested in
include practical professional elements. An important getting practical engineering experience [6]. Design projects
customer of engineering education and of ME graduates is encourage the students to be active and creative, cope with
industry [3]. Industry expects to obtain engineers with a basic engineering challenges and get practical experience. In
practical experience. The junior engineer should be able to contrast, learning by lectures, which is mainly passive, teaches
contribute after a short period of time. Industry looks for them to expect the lecturer to provide all required knowledge
engineers with essential technical competence in engineering [7]. As a result of business world globalization, many
science. Industry can no longer afford an extended training industrial companies operate in a vibrant and multicultural
program for the graduates [2]. The result of ignoring practical environment. They realized that engineers that work in the
education, results in a failure to meet industry's needs. company need, in addition to technical engineering skills, also

2212-8271 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CIRP 25th Design Conference Innovative Product Creation
doi:10.1016/j.procir.2015.01.043
178 Kfir Cohen and Reuven Katz / Procedia CIRP 36 (2015) 177 – 181

communication skills, team work ability and the

Table 1. Laboratory course plan
understanding of other society cultures. As a result of industry
demand, engineering departments started to teach soft skills 1ST HOUR 2ND
3RD HOUR (students)
[8,9,10]. The term “soft skill” in education is quite flexible Week (lecturer) HOUR(lecturer)
and has several interpretations. For example, project Lecture 1 Lecture2 Design Project Event
management course that may be regarded a soft skill course in 1 System requirements
Computers Engineering department, may be regarded a hard Fastener design Fastener design
review (SRR)
core course in Civil or Industrial Engineering departments [9]. 2
Bearing design Bearing design
Brainstorming &
In the laboratory course, in addition to teaching practical concepts
3 Exact
technical skills, we also teach “soft skills” such as: team work, Joints constraint Concepts evaluation
communication skills, presentation skills and recently we design
introduced product design, which is regarded a soft skill in the 4 Production Production
process: process: Preliminary design
ME department.
Milling Turning
This paper describes the Design and Manufacture 5 Preliminary design
Practical mechanical drawings
Laboratory (D&M Lab) course at the Technion, and includes a review (PDR)
description of course format, its contents and students’ 6 Practical mechanical drawings Detailed design
7 Stepper motor
projects. In order to get feedback from the laboratory course & electrical
Arduino Critical design review
graduates, we conducted a survey and present the results. We controller (CDR )
system
asked them about the contribution of the lab experience on 8 Measuring Measuring
Production status
their practical design knowledge and whether it had an impact instruments instruments
9 Materials Materials
on their performance in their first engineering job selecting selecting
Production status
10 Thermal
Coating Programing report
Course description and contents treatment
11 DFMA DFMA Inspection report
12 Production
The goal of the laboratory course is to teach basic Coupling
process: Integration report
design
mechanical design and practical design knowledge to a small Bending
class of 16 students that allows personal guidance and 13 Project demonstration & Final report
training. The course includes frontal lectures as well as a
project done and presented by the students. The project is
embedded in the course, it starts in its first week and ends 2. Students' project
with a built product at the end of the semester.
The objectives of the D&M lab include the following Each semester we propose a design project of a mechanical
topics: mechanism that comprises linear and rotating motions. The
x Product design methodology – The process of design students have to use existing lab equipment that includes two
reviews stepper motors, ball bearings and linear bearings. For a typical
x Conceptual design – Development of several solutions to project the hardware cost is about $200.
meet given requirements In the last three years the students designed and built the
x Mechanical elements selection from a catalog such as: following projects: Two degrees of freedom gimbal shown in
bearings, fasteners and springs Fig 1 (a), “Sine-drawing mechanism” shown in Fig. 1 (b),
x Design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA) “Pencil sharpener” shown in Fig 1(c), and “Stamping
x Geometrical & dimensional tolerances mechanism” shown in Fig.4.
x Manufacturing process selection
x Materials selection – Teach how to select a proper material
for a specific application (a) (b)
x Surface finish – Selecting suitable coating and painting
x Teamwork– How to communicate and work together in a
project team

Table 1 presents the laboratory course plan, based on a

weekly three hour meeting for 13 weeks. Two hours are
frontal lectures teaching practical know-how. The third hour
is devoted to project tracking and review. The purpose of the
frontal lectures is to follow and support the engineering phase (c)
of the ongoing project.

Fig 1. (a) Two DOF gimbal (b) Sine-drawing mechanism (c) Pencil
sharpener
 Kfir Cohen and Reuven Katz / Procedia CIRP 36 (2015) 177 – 181 179

and bill of material (BOM). In the critical design review

The projects are conducted by teams of 3 to 4 students. The (CDR) the solution is approved and ready for production. The
students form the team by themselves. The project activities production stage starts after the design has been approved.
comprise system development methodology and include The design is manufactured and assembled. Finally, the
topics such as: risk analysis, project plan, brainstorming and students have to operate and demonstrate their project in front
concept generation. Each week, the students orally present of the class, Fig 4.
their project status and get feedback from the class and the
instructor. In the 7th week a detailed design of the product
needs to be completed in order to start the production phase. 3. Technion Capstone design course and D&M lab
The production phase should be completed by the 11th week.
The product is assembled and tested to be ready by the end of The Technion ME Capstone course named “New Product
the semester. The project is completed when both the product Design” and the D&M Lab have a common purpose of
and the documentation are ready. teaching mechanical design. However, there is a substantial
As an example for demonstrating the project development difference between them. The main focus of the Capstone
process we selected the “Stamping mechanism”. The students course [11] is on learning project design methodology, while
presented four different concepts of the mechanism shown in the focus of the D&M Lab is on learning practical machine
Fig 2 design and applying it in a project. In a way, these courses
Concept 1: By using a Scotch-Yoke mechanism, the complement each other. Table 2 shows the comparison
rotational motion is converted to a linear motion. As a result, between the Technion Capstone course and the D&M lab.
the stamp moves up and down in order to stamp the moving
paper pulled by a motorized roller. Table 2 Capstone course compared to D&M Lab
Concept 2: The motors are steadily rotating. In each cycle
Technion Capstone Design and
the stamping mechanism touches the ink pad, turns and project course Manufacture lab
stamps the paper. The paper is moved constantly by two
Lecture Topics Project methodology Design know-how
motorized rollers.
The project Industry generated Synthetic and limited
Concept 3: The stamp is activated by an eccentric
design challenge design challenge
mechanism. The paper is wrapped around a motorized roller
Type of project Each team works on a Identical project for
that pulls it.
different challenge all teams
Concept 4: The stamp is guided along a prescribed path to
Project selection Selected by student Identical project
stamp the moving paper that is pulled by a motorized roller.
offered by the
instructor
In the next step, the design concept which best meets the
Components for Unlimited Based on existing
requirements is selected in a preliminary design review project components
(PDR), Fig 3. Following the PDR each team has to design in
Course duration Two semesters One semester
detail the selected concept and prepare a production file which
includes assembly and parts drawings, assembly instruction

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig 2. Four concepts designed by one team: (a) concept 1 (b) concept 2 (c) concept 3 (d) concept
180 Kfir Cohen and Reuven Katz / Procedia CIRP 36 (2015) 177 – 181

Fig 4. Stamping machine project at the stage of operation

Fig 3. The product at PDR phase.

To what extent is the lab course relevant to your work as a

mechanical engineer?
91% of the students confirmed that the course is relevant to
4. Students' satisfaction survey their work. The course meets the goal of instructing practical
skills which are needed when the graduates get their first job.
In order to improve the course and get evaluative feedback, To what extent did you work as a team on the project?
we carried out a survey. The response rate to the survey was The results indicated soft skills used by the students. Only
high, about 73% of the graduates responded (35 of 48 63% of the students reported that they worked as a team.
graduate replied), including those who left school and started To what extent did all the members of the team contribute
working. The students were asked to respond to each equally?
statement by choosing a score from one to five. A score of Working as a team required equal contribution from all
five indicated very high agreement with the statement, members. Only 46% of the students agreed that all the
whereas a score of one indicated that very low agreement with members of the team contributed equally.
the statement.
Summary of survey results and brief commentary within
each section: Table 3. Summary of survey responses.
To what extent did the lectures contribute to your
knowledge of design and manufacture? Average STD
94% of the students confirmed that lectures contributed
To what extent did the lectures contribute to your
significantly to their knowledge in design and manufacture. knowledge of design and manufacture?
4.5 0.9
These responses indicate the importance of the course and the
To what extent did the lectures contribute to the
lack of prior knowledge in practical design. carrying out of the course project?
4.2 0.8
To what extent did the lectures contribute to the carrying
To what extent did the project help to develop
out of the course project? expertise in design and manufacture?
4 0.9
About 89% of the students responded that the lectures
To what extent did the lab course contribute beyond
provided added value and helped them to complete the what was learned in other courses?
4.5 0.7
project.
To what extent is the lab course relevant to your
To what extent did the project help to develop expertise in work as a mechanical engineer?
4.2 1
design and manufacture?
To what extent did you work as a team on the
The results indicated that this type of project helped the project?
3.6 1.4
students to understand and implement practical knowledge.
To what extent did all the members of the team
86% of the students thought that the project helped them to contribute equally?
3.1 1.2
develop expertise in design and manufacture.
To what extent did the lab course contribute beyond what
was learned in other courses?
91% of the students responded that the lab contributed beyond The technical skills score is high. The students confirmed
what was learned in other courses. The answers of this that the project helped them to develop technical skills and the
question indicate that the topics learned in the lab are not frontal presentation helped them to design the project, table 3.
included in the curriculum or taught in other courses including However, one of the educational aims of the course was to
the Capstone design course. instil the soft skill of teamwork. This objective was the least
effectively met and needs improvement.
 Kfir Cohen and Reuven Katz / Procedia CIRP 36 (2015) 177 – 181 181

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