Development of a multidisciplinary design course via NASA´s Human-Powered Lunar Rover Design Competition

A new multidisciplinary design course was developed at the University of Tennessee in the 1996-1997 academic year. Although NASA\´s Human-Powered Lunar Rover Design Competition was used as the "vehicle" for the course development, the main impetus was to provide a true multidisciplinary design experience for both engineering and nonengineering students. Groups of students from the different majors were formed to design and analyze major components of the Lunar Rover. Teamwork within and between the groups was emphasized since the various components had to be integrated to form the final design. An interesting aspect of the course was to treat the two human drivers as one of the major components. This resulted in a complete engineering analysis of the performance characteristics of the students to determine the best choice of drivers (i.e., "engines"). To enhance the multidisciplinary experience, technical assistance and/or financial support was provided by the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Science Department as well as the Geology and Exercise Science Departments. The students completed the design, built the rover, and successfully participated in the NASA sponsored competition. Despite an initial hesitance to work with students outside their major, the class came together as a team. The course objectives and structure, results of the design process and competition, lessons learned, and future course developments are discussed in this paper.