EPICS: interdisciplinary service learning using engineering design projects

Engineering Projects in Community Service, EPICS, is a service-learning program that was initiated at Purdue University in the Fall of 1995. Under this program, undergraduate students earn academic credit for long-term team projects that solve technology-based problems for local community service organizations. The program has grown to include 20 project teams with over 250 students participating during the 1999 academic year from 20 different academic departments. The goals of the EPICS program include: providing students with multi-year, team-based, design and development experience; teaching students, by direct experience, how to interact with each other and with customers to specify, design, develop and deploy systems that solve real problems. This paper provides an overview of the EPICS program as well as the inclusion of the non-engineering students, particularly those in Liberal Arts. Lessons learned from the interdisciplinary nature of the program are presented