A Design Build Activity For A “Design Build” Course

A Design Build Activity For A “Design Build” Course

C. Rode, J. Christensen, C. Simonsen (2011).  A Design Build Activity For A “Design Build” Course. 9.

This paper deals with the CDIO course “Design Build”, which is taught in the first semester of the Bachelor of Engineering education at the Technical University of Denmark’s Department of Civil Engineering. A specific design build assignment has been developed for the course, and the paper describes this course activity.



The “Design Build” course revolves around the activity that the students should build a model house of their own during the course. The only demands stipulated are that the house should be made as a scale 1:20 model of a realistic house and that is should be thermally insulated and tight. The students work together in groups of four.



As part of the CDIO process, each group of students should work through a conceptualization phase, where the requirements for the house are defined. Then follows the phase where the house is designed as the best possible solution fulfilling the requirements the students had set. Next, for implementation, the model house is constructed in the workshop, and the measuring system is tested and installed in the house. Finally, the house will be operated by putting it on the ground in an outdoor test field where it is exposed to the Danish climate for two weeks while the indoor temperature and heat consumption are logged. The experimental findings shall be compared to a theoretical value for the heat loss, which is found from a calculation method the students learn in a parallel course.



While the course has resulted in a lot of enthusiasm among the students towards the specific construction task, it has also led to some initial frustration that the course content was not given as a well described assignment, and that the course curriculum had to be to some extent self-defined. This has been a challenge to the very young students who have participated in the course. 

 

Authors (New): 
Carsten Rode
Jørgen Erik Christensen
Claus Simonsen
Pages: 
9
Affiliations: 
Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Keywords: 
Design Build course
constructing
experiments
Field test
group work
team building
theoretical assessment
Year: 
2011
Reference: 
Vigild, M., Willumsen, L., Borchersen, E., Clement, K., Jensen, L.B., Kjærgaard, C., Klit, P., Sparsøe, J. ”Comparison and classification of design build projects in different engineering bachelor programs”. Proceedings of the 5th International CDIO Conference, Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore, June 7-10, 2009.: 
Handbook for CDIO implementation at Bachelor of Engineering Programmes at DTU. (In Danish). Technical University of Denmark, 2009.: 
Christensen, J.E., Rode, C., Borchersen, E. “Development of evaluation procedure for effective implementation of CDIO”. Proceedings of the 5th International CDIO Conference, Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore, June 7-10, 2009.: 
Krogsbøll, A., Christensen, J.E., Hussmann, P., “Evaluation of learning outcomes in CDIO.Programme within civil engineering”. Proceedings of the 6th International CDIO Conference, École Polytechnique, Montréal, June 15-18, 2010.: 
Krogsbøll, A., Simonsen, C., Christensen, J.E., Larsen, T.B., Goltermann, P., Koss, H., Sand, J., “CDIO projects in civil engineering study program at DTU”. Proceedings of the 7th International CDIO Conference, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 20 - 23, 2011.: 
Christensen, J.E., Karhu, M., Christensen, C., “Teaching interpersonal skills in international design-build course”. Proceedings of the 7th International CDIO Conference, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 20 - 23, 2011.: 
Friis-Hansen P. and Houbak N. and Klit P., “Evaluation of Course Evaluations”, 1st International CDIO Conference, Queen´s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, June 7-8, 2005.pp 1-9.: 
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