In today's quickly changing and increasingly competitive market place, it is imperative that manufacturers keep abreast of the technological advances and design innovations incorporated into competing product lines. The term competitive assessment has been coined by manufacturers to describe the process of ethically acquiring, inspecting, analyzing, instrumenting and testing the product lines of other manufacturers. In the Competitive Assessment Laboratory at Rowan University, multidisciplinary teams of freshman engineering students from each of the four engineering departments will perform each of the above tasks on a consumer appliance. In addition to introducing students to the science and art of design, the Competitive Assessment Laboratory will allow multidisciplinary teams of faculty to assess the constantly evolving initial conditions under which the typical engineering student enters his or her course of study. As described in detail in this proposal, the Competitive Assessment Laboratory will contain 5 consumer appliance test stations featuring PC-based data acquisition systems capable of measuring thermocouple and voltage/current signals. Each station will also be equipped with mechanical measurement equipment and portable materials testing equipment. The laboratory will also be outfitted with a materials testing station featuring a table top mechanical testing system and a Rockwell hardness tester. The objectives of the Competitive Assessment Laboratory at Rowan University are as follows: 1) Provide the launching pad for an innovative, four year design curriculum by introducing freshmen to the science and art of design by evaluating the work of practicing designers, 2) Introduce multidisciplinary groups of engineering students to unifying engineering science principles such as fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, thermodynamics, transport and electricity/magnetism using the consumer appliance as a test bed, 3) Enable students to determine how scientific principles, material propert ies, manufacturing techniques, cost, safety requirements, environmental considerations and intellectual property rights impact the design of a product, 4) Allow freshman students to actively participate in a meaningful design effort by instrumenting and evaluating the performance of a consumer appliance, 5) Provide faculty with the means to assess the engineering background of incoming students and address experiential deficiencies via hands-on experience with the tools of the trade.