Integrating systematic creativity into first-year engineering design curriculum

Since the lack of creative potential in graduating engineers has been and continues to be a concern for industry leaders, most educators have added a common ideation approachÐbrainstormingÐto engineering design curricula. However, because brainstorming requires the designer to look inward for inspiration, it can be a daunting task, which is not always fruitful. Some systematic creativity methods, on the other hand, use solution patterns derived from problems similar to the one being solved. These methods have typically been introduced in senior or graduate elective courses, if at all. This paper presents the rationale for, and our experience with introducing one of these methods, the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) in a first-year engineering design course. In addition, a study, comparing the ideation quantity in course sections that used TRIZ against control sections that did not, is presented. Results indicate that student teams from sections, where TRIZ was taught, generated substantially more feasible design concepts for an industry-sponsored design problem that was common to all sections.

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