Our goal is to provide an opportunity for you as a junior engineer to internalize the Principles of Engineering Design [POED] and to develop competencies (see Page 1) that you need to hit the road running as a junior engineer in AME4553 and in industry in nine months’ time. Note the phrase “junior engineer.” In your courses up to this point, you have largely identified and been identified as “students.” We make the conscious choice instead to use the phrase “junior engineer” to highlight the fact that you are now at a stage of technical competency and maturity that merits treatment more akin to that you will likely experience in your first job as an engineer. Further, we intend to act largely as mentors or coaches to you throughout the design project. Internalizing this perspective, we believe, will aid in you in two ways. First, we aim to provide you the tools and guidance which will enable you to meet the challenge presented in this course and are therefore available as resources. Second, we intend to prepare you in this course for your capstone design experience (AME4553) in the Spring semester. In AME4553, you will be addressing engineering challenges (primarily for corporate sponsors) for which you will be responsible for professional work. Accordingly, in AME4163, we expect you to learn how to act like practicing junior engineers in professional settings. We therefore put it to you in AME4163, in preparation for your work in capstone and your careers, that you should endeavor to visualize yourselves as “junior engineers” as you work with your teams this semester.

In AME4163, you must complete a semester-long design, build and test project with a team of your colleagues. In this course, we focus on learning and not just on how well your project device performs on the day of the competition. By the time you begin your Capstone design projects in Spring, you should be able to:

- Plan how you will execute your Capstone project by identifying the requirements, implement the plan of action, evaluate the outcome, and identify improvements to the ensuing deliverables and process.
- Generate, evaluate, and develop design concepts by applying knowledge of science, engineering techniques, and manufacturing principles.

- Use analysis and simulation tools to understand design performance and then improve the design.

- Generate solid models and engineering drawings of the design using 3D modelling software.
- Prototype the design.
- Continue to learn by reflecting on doing (for example, design, build, test, read, write, etc.) and experiencing (for example, working in a team, getting feedback from mentors).

As we intend to treat each of you like a junior engineer in a company, we expect you to act like one. Consider how you frame your questions to your mentors. We encourage frequent questions to improve your understanding, but your questions should be commensurate with your new status. A student asks questions like “how can I get an A?” or “what do you want me to do in this assignment?” A junior engineer thinks deeper and instead asks questions which will help them learn and grow as engineers. So, while we encourage frequent questions, we ask that you stop and think before asking questions which could instead be more readily answered by reading through this website.