Taking care of the team in a first-year design experience course

Design experience coursework for first-year engineering and computer science students is not new. These experiences are often team-based and typically focus extensively on the technical aspects of the project, while the behavioral and interpersonal aspects sometimes go unnoticed. Here, we report on a novel organization for an introduction to engineering design course that provides direct and proactive support for both the engineering components of the course as well as proactive support for first-year students and their teams. The course is structured to allow students to focus on engineering design and implementation of a robotics system while also taking time to engage in reflection activities geared towards assessment of team dynamic and impact on team productivity. Team facilitators observe the teams during work time over the course of the semester and use information gathered in structured team debriefs called retrospectives. While much work has been done, we continue to iterate on the design and implementation of this course.