Design and construction of a boat powered by solar energy with the aid of computational tools

• Autores: Carlos Rivera Solorio, Alejandro J. García Cuéllar, Abiud Flores
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 29, no. Extra 2, 2013, págs. 380-387
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The senior design project in engineering curricula is undoubtedly one of the prime opportunities for future engineers to synthesizeknowledge acquired during their college education. We adopt the perspective that product development is an engineering and social activity aimed to satisfy human needs eliminating the negative environmental impact. This definition is delivered in our studentsthrough design experiences aimed under a project-oriented design course. This article seeks to give an overview of this project andto summarize the experience of the past two years that has led to improvement in the designing experiences in the capstone project.The project actively uses CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing), FEM (Finite ElementMethod) and CAD (Computer Aided Design) software as tools for enhancing the innovative capacity of senior year engineeringstudents. Seniors working collaboratively were asked to design a solar-powered boat while taking hydrodynamic, energy andeconomic factors into consideration. We show how computational tools accelerate decision making processes in design whilesuggesting promising directions for the students to follow. All this is done while adhering to the fundamental principles inengineering that will lead to a feasible solution. Student creativity was channeled appropriately through CFD, FEM, CAM andCAD tools and new ideas were rigorously and rapidly tested at an early stage in the project allowing for a wide exploration ofideas and concepts. An important result of this capstone activity is the realization by the students of the importance of specializedengineering software in achieving a successful design. The objective of this paper is to present and discuss results obtained whileobserving students work with computer tools as a way to enhance their creativity in the context of developing their senior designproject.