Introductory Pre-College Engineering Design Course Based upon Collaborative Learning to High School Students

In order to stimulate young students´ interest in science and engineering, Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) has been offering a two-day pre-college engineering design course to high school students each year since 2001. As students have little engineering knowledge, we intended to achieve the objective of the course by four pedagogical concepts: collaborative learning, computer simulation, hands-on exercises and design-build-test cycle. On the first day of the course, each student was asked to design and build one model bridge individually using light and flexible material. After completion, students applied loads to the bridges until they collapsed. KIT faculty gave a short lecture on the strength of material and computer software to calculate the strength of bridges. At the end of the first day, students were assigned to teams. Based upon the previous experience and knowledge which they acquired on the first day, each team designed and built a model bridge that could carry a much heavier load. Due to learning through the four pedagogical concepts, the average load-carrying capacity of bridges designed by teams was 2.1 times larger than those of bridges designed by individual students. This paper discusses the pre-coIIege engineering design course and results of student feedback