Most students don’t have the opportunity to build a 7-foot-long skee-ball machine or an interactive laser maze, but IU’s first ever engineering class got to do just that.
The small class of 18 for intelligent systems majors is a part of a hands-on atmosphere put in place this year during the inaugural year of IU’s engineering program, according to an IU press release.
“We focus on beginning to build things from day one,” said Martin Swany, a professor and associate chair of the program, in the release. “We introduce a concept, and the students get to apply and contextualize that concept immediately in a hands-on way. Then, we circle back to the concept again. This approach gives our students a very marketable set of skills, so that when they enter the workforce they are ready to solve modern challenges.”
The program was put together to respond to the need for more science, technology, engineering and mathematics oriented students after an Indiana task force assessed the needs of the state.
Freshman Jackie Youngs said she was happy to be on the ground floor of a new program like this one. She said she wasn’t worried about the small class and saw it as an advantage for the program.
“The small class size allows our instructors to gauge where we are as a class and make sure we are understanding not only what we are doing but why we are doing it,” Youngs said in the release. “If we are grasping a subject quickly, they can fly through it, but if we are struggling, they can slow it down.”
The different groups within the class created laser mazes, a skee-ball machine and an LED cube which created light patterns based on the rhythms of music.
“There’s so much to learn about what computers can do and what you can do with computers,” Youngs said in the release. “If you learn that in college, you’re more prepared and relevant in the workforce.”
Dominick Jean
