The goal of the project is to develop and disseminate curriculum in the areas of comprehensive design for associate degree technician and baccalaureate degree technology students. Project activities focus on skills in the areas of CAD, design for manufacturability and assembly, collaborative engineering, teamwork, and managing change. The partner institutions include a four-year school (Purdue University) and four two-year schools (Sinclair Community College, Fox Creek Technical College, Mott Community College, and Butler Community College), who are working collaboratively to identify and validate the competencies for comprehensive design. With this foundation, the project team is developing an interdisciplinary comprehensive design educational program between partner institutions that is addressing transferability of skills and knowledge from associate degree to baccalaureate degree programs. As a part of this, the project teaam is developing and delivering educational modules to associate degree technicians, baccalaureate degree technology students, and incumbent workers. An outreach program for high school students increases the visibility of the engineering and manufacturing profession and academic preparedness among the high school population. The partner institutions are utilizing existing venues for program dissemination including web-based delivery, journal publications, presentations at professional conferences, development of short courses for workforce development, and short programs for high-school students. The project is using two internal evaluators who are developing and adapting the needed instrumentation and managing data security and analyses along with an external evaluator who is completing an independent summative assessment. The broader impacts of the project involve the expansion and improvement of the region's workforce, the dissemination of their instructional material, and the outreach efforts to high school students.
