Today was the last day of class/ final presentations day for our First Year Engineering Design section! It was the first time I taught first year design, and the whole thing was an experiment: 5 teams working on different building systems (energy, water, food/garden, indoor environmental quality, and transportation/equity for a community resilience hub in Philly. They all had to work in several scales and across teams to coordinate the results and resources like site, space, energy, water, capacity. I admit it could have gone terribly wrong (and I often thought it would), but they put in the effort and dedication, and it worked out! They presented as true engineers today. With shared goals, design alternatives, and evidence to back up their decisions. I think they’ll do great in the years to come!
