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Global Engineering Teams How? Advisors identify projects & find sponsors. Students from 2-3 universities form teams. One week face-to-face kickoff meeting in Southern hemisphere. Team building exercises. Background of challenge. Design thinking. Six months of collaboration as geographically distributed team. Skype, Google Hangout, , etc. Due diligence. Ideation. Engineering. Prototyping. One week final meeting in Northern hemisphere. Presentations & prototype demonstration to stakeholders.
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Global Engineering Teams: An International Interdisciplinary Design
ExperienceEric H. Ledet, Ph.D.Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical EngineeringRensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Global Engineering Teams
• What?• Consortium of universities from North America, South
America, Europe, & Africa.• Mission: Deliver a unique international, interdisciplinary
design experience to engineering students.• Open-ended design challenges – many aimed at
addressing fundamental (humanitarian) problems experienced in developing countries.• “International capstone experience”.
Global Engineering Teams
• How?• Advisors identify projects & find sponsors.• Students from 2-3 universities form teams.• One week face-to-face kickoff meeting in Southern hemisphere.
• Team building exercises.• Background of challenge.• Design thinking.
• Six months of collaboration as geographically distributed team.• Skype, Google Hangout, email, etc.• Due diligence.• Ideation.• Engineering.• Prototyping.
• One week final meeting in Northern hemisphere.• Presentations & prototype demonstration to stakeholders.
Global Engineering Teams
• How?• Advisors identify projects & find sponsors.
Wrong Way:• Assume that we understand the
problems of under-resourced healthcare systems.
• Conceive of problems/solutions independently of stakeholders.
• Assume that solutions will be adopted by end-users.
Right Way:• Identify all of the stakeholders
first - not just end-users.• Understand the challenges (pain
points) of each stakeholder.• Experience firsthand and
empathize.• Keep all stakeholders involved in
the problem identification & solution development process.
End-user
Healthcare worker
District Healthcare ManagerDr. Franz Krige
Global Engineering Teams• Why?
• Obtain design experience principally similar to capstone.• Solve fundamental engineering problems.• Experience working on international, interdisciplinary team.• Travel!
G.E.T. vs Capstone• Comparison
• Survey…• All students who participated in G.E.T. and completed an ABET
accredited capstone design course from 2010-2014.• 15 students: 7 mech, 6 biomed, 2 chem.
• Compare G.E.T. to capstone for ABET outcomes a-k.• Scale 1-10:
• 1 = capstone superior.• 5 = no difference.• 10 = G.E.T. superior.
• For all outcomes mean was 7.31 (SD=1.13).• For outcomes most strongly associated with capstone, mean
was 7.85 (SD=1.78).• Mean score for every outcome indicated that G.E.T. was a
statistically significantly stronger experience.
Global Engineering Teams
• Summary• Programs like G.E.T. can serve as an enhanced capstone
design experience.• Challenges:
• Funding/sponsorship.• Identifying meaningful projects.• Logistics.• Faculty time commitment per student.
Acknowledgements• Marco Eisenberg• Cornie Scheffer• Matthew Parkinson• Rick Schuhmann• All of the students who
have participated in G.E.T.
• Center for Disability Services• Western Cape
Rehabilitation Facility• Amp It Up• NeuroTect• Innovus• RPI
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