Conducting a design workshop in the classroom

The author describes the intent and format of a classroom design workshop. The goals of the design workshop and the design project are presented, and the results of the projects are compared with prior years´ results when no design workshop was implemented. It is observed that the workshop technique can produce beneficial results for both students and professors working on design-oriented assignments. The methods described for the workshop can be applied in any technical class where the design activity attempts to solve a creative engineering application. The use of this approach in a senior-level course in electrical engineering technology at Purdue University is discussed