“Thinking by doing” : making as a vital part of engineering education

The engineer of the 21st century is expected to possess a broad range of skills and abilities. Besides more traditional technical knowledge and engineering skills, interpersonal skills, critical thinking, creativity and design makes its way into the curriculum of our engineering education. At the department of me-chanical engineering, the underlying pedagogical approach to teaching engineer-ing design is based on constructivism. Research has shown that a very good way for students to “construct” their knowledge is to design, build and publicly share artifacts. Consequently, we are aiming to make design and prototyping an integral part of our engineering education. This align well with the CDIO initiative of which BTH is part since 2013.