Actions and Interactions at Collaborative Engineering Design Hackathon: Looking Through the Lens of Embodied Cognition

Abstract

Abstract: Engineering design is an important aspect of engineering education. The essence of engineering design process has been conveyed to students in diverse ways such as formal capstone and cornerstone projects or informal processes such as hackathons. The interdisciplinary nature of engineering design projects often prove challenging to students in multiple ways. As informal opportunities, hackathons have the potential to acquaint students with several skills key to interdisciplinary engineering design. This paper investigates the contribution of one such hackathon — a medical device innovation hackathon, in supporting student understanding and learning of engineering design process. Specifically, the examines the influence embodied cognition plays on supporting student understanding of an engineering design problem that cuts across multiple disciplines. In the case study, we describe an episode where a team of students go through the gradual process of comprehending the design problem along with the accompanying design complexities through descriptive narration, and simulation.