Autor(es):
Oliveira, Filomena 
; Sepúlveda, Manuel J. ; Monteiro, Sérgio B. S. ; Lima, Rui M. ; Carvalho, Dinis
Data: 2013
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/26478
Origem: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Assunto(s): Project-based learning; Mechatronics education; Multidisciplinary team
Descrição
This paper presents a new line of project based learning in the School of Engineering of University of Minho:
the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Integrated Project (IEIP). Four groups, each one composed of
students from different engineering integrated master courses – Mechanical, Industrial Electronics and
Computers, Polymer, Industrial Management – compete against each other in developing or improving
commercial products manufactured by actual industries. There have been so far five editions of the IEIP,
with five different companies and five diverse products, however, all these products included components
that required knowledge from all the engineering courses involved. Only with the cooperation
between the students of the various courses that compose each multidisciplinary team, the success is
attainable. As each student has to deal with various engineering scopes, students’ technical skills are
greatly enlarged and they acquire a multidisciplinary knowledge that was not possible in another way.
Their soft skills like project management, teamwork, communication ability and personal development,
which are valuable requisites for their future employers, are also improved. The participating industries
also take advantage of the project: the groups competing against each other act as a multiskilled work
force, actually making proposals capable of improving their products, their efficiency, and reducing costs.
