Cornerstone design - integrated mathematical model analysis for first semester design experiences

Michigan Technological University is one of the nations largest engineering schools (800+ first year students) and houses a large common first year engineering curriculum. The goal of this curriculum is to introduce many of the fundamental components of engineering. During the first semester, these components include teamwork, technical communication, design methods, use of modern computational tools, and programming and analysis. Additional emphasis is placed on exposing the inherent integration between engineering, physics, and mathematics, so often overlooked or missed by today's students. This paper discusses methods used to help the students discover the pathway through idea generation, data collection, math model development and computational analysis, prototype development, model validation, and final testing. In our first year courses," final testing" is typically a friendly competition using their design prototypes. Emphasis is made in this paper to show how students are forced to use their mathematical models in order to be competitive (rather than just get credit for the exercise). This paper is significant as it presents useable and scaleable solutions for integrated cornerstone design experiments which include computational model development and analysis. This paper also presents recommended project deliverables and project timelines.