CDIO IMPLEMENTATION FOR MECHANICAL COURSES AT PHAROS UNIVERSITY IN ALEXANDRIA

Effective and sustainable education of engineering fundamentals is the main objective for any accreditation body such as ABET, in particular the criteria of “Design, Conduct Experiment and Analyze the results.”  From this perspective, the Mechanical Engineering Department at Pharos University in Alexandria, Egypt, adopted the concept of CDIO (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate), aiming to stress these criteria over the past three years starting in the academic year 2017/2018. Six courses in mechanical power engineering were selected, and their course specification modified to stress their educational fulfillment in the context of CDIO and enhance the real-world systems approach using prototypes designed and built by students. The presented work intends to summarize the adaptation and implementation of CDIO-based learning through the Engineering Fluid Mechanics course by replacing most of the laboratory instructional experiments with hands-on learning using the CDIO approach where the professional practice is in focus.  The CDIO implementation in spring 2018 pursued the four stages (conceive-design-implement-operate), which are described and outlined in this manuscript. Furthermore, based on the students’ feedback, satisfaction assessment, and semester grades, the CDIO method proved its capability to enhance student learning and gave a chance for close encounters with the course instructor as well as the mechanical design professor. This is reflected in the overall students’ learning, as well as their achievements in comparison to previous semesters. Although the semester work grade still follows the normal curve shape, its standard deviation became smaller, which meant that most students benefited from the CDIO approach in teaching and learning.