Fall 2014 | Volume 4 | Issue 2

This issue of Advances features eight articles that touch a number of important areas currently facing engineering education. These include student innovation space, entrepreneurship education, “big data” analysis, multidisciplinary capstone design instruction and projects, problem solving and gender, and an innovative way of teaching pre-calculus to high school students. Papers also discuss using a low-cost haptic paddle to teach systems dynamics and an interactive simulator-based pedagogical approach for teaching microcontrollers.

Of note is the lead paper by Craig Forest and a team of colleagues from Georgia Tech that describes Tech’s very creative Innovation Studio – a student run maker space that has developed its own culture. This 3,000-square-foot space was initially founded specifically for capstone design courses, but as the paper describes, the Invention Studio has taken on a life and culture of its own, far beyond just a capstone design prototyping lab. The paper describes the implementation process for the space, including its organization, funding, and challenges. The value of hands-on, design-build education to stimulate innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship in engineering undergraduates is discussed in detail.