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The Benefits of an Interdisciplinary Design Project

Challenge X is a three-year vehicle design competition sponsored by General Motors (GM) and the U.S. Department of Energy. Seventeen universities were selected for this competition. The University of Tulsa, with the smallest engineering program, was selected because of its unique interdisciplinary approach to the design process. Through their involvement in this project, students have the opportunity to develop skills within their selected field of study and beyond their chosen major. As part of this program, the University of Tulsa has established an interdisciplinary course so that students working on this project may earn course credit. This course may only be a means of recording their hard work on this very challenging project, but in some cases, with the approval of the individual department chair, it may be used to fulfill upper-level engineering elective credits. Regardless of the type of credit earned the students gain skills that will make them valuable employees upon graduation. Students learn to communicate their work in a professional manner at group meetings and in regular written reports. The students receive guidance, but ultimately must create their own path for evaluating plans and must negotiate with one another when multiple paths are offered. Students who participate in this project and enroll in this course have distinctly proven that they can meet ABET criteria (a) – (k). In this paper, the authors will give an overview of the first year of this program, looking particularly at examples of the benefits to students and the difficulties encountered. Methods for integrating this into recruiting and retention programs will also be offered.