Work in progress — Transforming entrepreneurship and innovation instruction in Fluid Mechanics

Case studies, a valuable tool in business education, are used to permit students access to situations and environments which are not accessible in a classroom. One element of a business case study differentiating it from a simple company history is that the tone and content is often designed with an ulterior objective or to achieve a certain state of mind before a discussion point: they are engineered learning environments. Within an engineering classroom, the business case study approach can be manipulated to introduce students to concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation and to facilitate an understanding of how classroom content can be employed in practice. A series of limited-scope case studies have been introduced in a junior-level Fluid Mechanics class which align entrepreneurship and innovation objectives with course content by introducing subject-specific analysis, sample application and reflection to the case studies. Two elements of a three-activity sequence are presented beginning with an introduction to entrepreneurship and the “painstorming” concept through a case study of a foam-reducing keg tap. The concept of social entrepreneurship is then introduced using a system implemented by a South African social entrepreneur to provide drinking water for rural communities using playground equipment as a pump.