ESCAPING THE STRAITJACKET OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Engineering education in the United Kingdom might be characterized by a conservative and pragmatic approach. It has developed from the approaches constructed during the age of enlightenment and industrial revolution and has since been subject to a number of reviews and evolutionary changes. Engineering degrees in some cases have been taught by a combination of distinctly identifiable modules, which, despite good intentions and encouragement by accreditation bodies, are rarely explicitly interlinked or interrelated. The use of a VLE (virtual learning environment) to support a problem-based approach to learning, in order to facilitate the acquisition of a wide range of interdisciplinary skills, is explored within this paper. Students are asked to design a transmission system for a compressor by a fictional OEM (original equipment manufacturer). The activity requires marketing, business planning, project management, specification, conceptual design, detailed design, preparation for manufacture, teamwork and liaison with a number of individuals and organizations. The mechanism of running the project is described here along with the challenges its delivery presented.