Teaching Engineering Design in an Academic Makerspace: Blending Theory and Practice to Solve Client-based Problems

The proliferation of higher education makerspaces – sites where students, faculty, and staff design and build solutions to engineering challenges and other problems – suggests that such spaces have a special value on university campuses in a number of contexts. This paper reports on the unique impact of a higher education makerspace (the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design) in the arena of design education. We review the history of design education, identifying the values of this form of pedagogy and highlighting many of the challenges involved with teaching design. These values include facilitating design instruction in lab settings, establishing a continuum of design experiences, and incorporating meaningful problem-based learning activities. Similarly, we review higher education makerspaces to provide insights into how they can play a role in mitigating challenges associated with teaching design. Using examples from eight courses taught in the profiled higher education makerspace, three design-focused instructional methods are presented that integrate course instruction, skill development, knowledge acquisition, and client-based problem solving by student teams. These methods have been applied across all four undergraduate years in courses closely aligned with biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, and engineering as a whole (for an introductory course). The courses span design education across the typical gap between cornerstone and capstone design courses. In all cases, the specific role of the higher education makerspace in enhancing the value of these courses is demonstrated.