Teaching capstone design: The influence of problem complexity

Many capstone courses include design methodology but the characteristics of design problems that provide the best learning opportunities need to be defined and the effect on student perceptions measured. In an industrial setting, it is generally up to the engineer to decide which design methods should be applied in order to obtain the desired outcome. Thus if students do not believe the design methods to be effective, they will not choose to use them in the future. Functional modeling is a technique for systematically breaking down a design problem into its sub-functions. Groups were given either a simple or complex problem to solve for their senior design project. At the end of the semester, a quiz over the functional modeling concepts was administered, and a questionnaire was answered by the students to measure their perceptions of the design methods. An ANOVA shows an interaction between student opinions and the complexity of the design problem on the students´ functional modeling ability. Results indicate the complexity of the problem and perceptions of the design methods are significant factors when determining the students´ functional modeling abilities. Additionally, the complexity of the design problem likely affects other design skills.