Starting with the first breaths of life and continuing till the last, the curiosity and creative drive of people propels them through time and event. Sadly, we live in a cultural system that for the most part has taken the two drives as separate entities that do not need to be readily combined. The educational system is specifically designed to handle the curious side of our being, but fails miserably to satisfy the desire for expression. Rigid guidelines for learning are set and followed out with utmost precision to create a class of humans adept at cramming for test, skimming Cliff Notes and copying homework. The few chances at creative expression are so base and trivial that students rarely have the opportunity to learn and understand how to express themselves through creative media.
Enter the engineer. This subclass of student attempts, against the will of the formal education system, to combine the curiosity of nature with the natural creative impulse and create machines, models and ideas that further the state of the art. Sadly, there is little support for this process in the educational system. Learning still encompasses cramming and skimming and hoping to make it through the test. While many creative approaches to this have been attempted, this energy would be much more useful if transfered in to the actual learning process.
Enter the EG498A projects. The projects designed in EG498A will provide beginning engineers with the opportunity to learn basic engineering principles in a creative, exploratory environment. The classroom created to execute these projects should be one with the laboratory. The professor should not only hold lectures introducing concepts and ideas, but also take an active role in the creative process of solving the problems presented to the students.
In the next few sections, I will propose a method by which the introductory engineering classes could be taught and a few project ideas for the class.