A Brief Description of Activities

In the next section we are going to describe some of the activities developed in the Taller de Ingeniería II course.

Mystery Artifact Challenge

This exercise is used as an introduction to the reverse engineering process. It provides an initial opportunity for team members to work together to solve an open-ended problem.

Our mystery artifact challenge, is an activity inspired in a similar one described in (Abarca et al., 2000). In this activity students are organized in teams, each of them are given an artifact upon which, after a thorough investigation, must answer the following questions: what is the artifact?, how it is work?, which is its function?, etc. Some artifact that we have used in past are an arithmetic machine from 1800s, a stem of a diesel engine injector needle, an electric transformer, a piece and circuits from a trackball, etc.

The MAC takes two weeks, the first is used to explain the exercise, to submit the artifacts, students to make consultations on the assigned artifacts and to stablish hypothesis and to plan the information seeking (see figure 1). In the second week, all teams must make a presentation regarding the assigned device.

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This activity assesses teamwork (stated by the Professor and his assistants in the room) more a self-assessment and evaluation between peers by the students themselves. Communication skills are assessed during the presentation of the mysterious object. For teamwork and communication skills we use rubrics that we allow assess communication skills for both one and the other

Although it is not the objective of the activity, over 90% of the artifacts have been positively recognized.

Figure 1. Students in a MAC activity Teamwork activity

Teamwork is a collaboration effort carried out between members of a working group in order to achieve common goals. When there is not teamwork, members of a group have difficulty completing their tasks effectively and often struggle with no clear objective. On the other hand, teamworks catapult its members to competition as a result of his character cohesive. Teamwork is an important aspect of any successful organization.

This is an activity of two classes, one hour one in which associated concepts as leadership, integration, cooperation, contribution, etc., are exposed and explained and another three hours class in which students participates in 5 or 6 outdoor games as a way to promote teamwork performed by different groups. Some of these games have been called Trasvasijar (to pour into another container), Minefield, Collectors Treasury, Crossing the pond, River Crossing, Electric Fence and Air Collectors. As a reference, the River Crossing game is described in the next:

Objetive: To help one family composed by a father (80Kg), a mother (80Kg), twin brothers (40Kg each), a baby and a small pet dog to cross a river with a raft with 80 Kg as maximum capacity.

Instructions: In teams of 7-9 members, each group will be provided with a sheet of paper and a pencil. In a maximum of five minutes the groups should designate roles (parent, child 1 child 2 baby and pet). These roles must be made by the members of each team in a visible area of your body. At the same time, each team must plan and write clear and precise and feasible for all family members to cross the river plan. Consider that the raft should not charge more than 80Kg and that neither the baby nor the pet can be alone anywhere.

As each team has its plan should deliver a moderator, who will determine if the plan is readable (that is) and feasible or should do it again.

185 When all plans are delivered or expiration of the time for planning teams will be able to execute your plan, getting the win the team that has delivered its first feasible plan.

Learning: This activity shows what constitutes a feasible solution to a problem of limited resources and how team members must assume different roles at different times to keep within capacity of the resource (in this case the raft). Finally, we demonstrate the effects of pressure to deliver something before the competition, which is the day to day business. Often the first company that serves the requirements of a market which is victorious. Also respond before all but evil can bring negative consequences

Figure 2. Students participating in different teamwork activities

Requirement Specification Activity

Software Engineering (SE) is an engineering discipline concerning all aspects of software production.

Software engineers adopt a systematic approach to carry out its work and use tools and techniques required to solve the problem posed, according to restrictions development and resources available. Requirement specification is a SE stage in which customers and engineers fix or determine, precisely, needs or desires of users on each part of the information system to automate. The success in the development of this stage determines the time and effort of total project development, also reduces the cost of debugging and associated risks.

The requirements specification is not without difficulties, one of them has to do with communication between engineers (technical language) and customers (own language problem). To show how the lack of a common language between engineers and clients phenomenon can affect to a SE project, we have created the following activity: The students, organized in groups of 5 students receive an image (picture) that will have to describe as fully as possible, creating a system to specify them if necessary. Once after a predetermined time limit or having all the teams finished with the descriptions will be exchanged for each team play, based on the description that has been responsible for a drawing.

To end the activity photographs will be compared with reproductions produced by the teams, this comparison constituting a part of the assessment work equipment produced by each team.

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DESIGN DESCRIPTION RESULTS

Figure 3. Requirement Specification Activity Interest Group Activity

Individuals or groups of individuals can affect or to be affected by a company, government or other organization. In response, they can legitimately make demands on the organization, generating dependencies that are dynamic in time, as individuals or groups of individuals pursuing their own interests and often these are conflicting.

This phenomenon is typical in relations between business owners and their customers, while the former seeking better prices to maximize profitability the second ones want lower prices and higher quality.

In Chile, a problem that has always involved conflict of interest has occurred against the installation of any power generation system. In this scenario, companies, the government, the inhabitants of the area affected by the installation of central power generation, political, environmental organizations, consumers and other stakeholders face many demands or interests.

In this context, the work done by students in the course is given a quota national problem (in the last two years has been selected Chilean Educational Reform), determine:

How did the problem begin?

Who are the stakeholders?

What everyone thinks? What affects them?

What are the balances between them? What interest groups have more power and what that kind of power?

Is it possible to reconcile the wishes of the different interest groups?

etc.

The research must involve finding technical information, data media, expert opinions, interviews with representatives of interest groups and the very position of the team regarding the problem. All information collected should be summarized in a report and defend positions on each team (group dynamics).

187 3.5 Final Project

The last 6-8 weeks of the course are aimed at the realization of the final project. This involves automating a process or the creation of a mechanism using Arduino. The kits have used a programmable microcontroller Arduino language (similar to C language) and a set of sensors and actuators. The timeline for this project is as follows: in weeks 1 and 2 induction kit is made, with demonstrations of their use and basic training in electronics and programming circuitry. In parallel, each team consisting of 6-8 students must conceive a project that can be used in these kits. In the third week the proposal must be fully defined and each team must report in the specification document the problem to solve. Below and to the penultimate week the teams are free to design, implement and document the history of your project. Finally, in the last week each team must make a presentation of their project in front of their fellow students and other invited guests (teachers, senior pupils, etc.).

Figure 4. Students at the Final Project Activity