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Unit Outline
Page 1
Unit details
Unit title
Unit code
Availability
Location
Credit points
Mode
Face to face
Contact details
Faculty
School
School website
Unit coordinator
Email
Unit co-coordinator
Email
Telephone
Consultation hours
Lecturers
Full Name
Position
Phone Number
Unit rules
Incompatibility
Unit description
This unit lies at the start of the pathway to becoming an engineer. Engineers conceive ways to rearrange objects, materials and
systems to achieve beneficial outcomes. There are many personal and professional skills and knowledge, which need to be gained in
order to make use of the technical knowledge that students acquire in other units, and to apply these to real projects. In the unit,
students study a real project in one of three geopolitical contexts. They learn how the context influences the objectives, the process and
the outcomes; to work in small engineering teams with distributed expertiseno one person knows enough to reach the objective so
members of the team have to rely on working together; and to develop social interaction and other communication skills forming the
foundations of professional practice.
Learning outcomes
Students are able to (1) develop communication skills including accurate, active listening (note taking, acquiring language and
terminology of the speaker), seeing (sketching, visual representation), reading and comprehension skills, oral and written presentation
skills, the ability to clearly and concisely communicate the results of a project, and learn how to learn and teach others; (2) develop
teamwork skills including the development of a cooperative relationship with peers and experts in order to obtain information and
assistance when needed, to become aware of distributed expertise/coordination, to develop the ability to work well in multidisciplinary
and multicultural teams and understand the role as team leader and player, and to manage effectively with dysfunctional teams and
resolve conflicts; (3) develop project management skills including the ability to plan projects efficiently and effectively, as well as time
management; (4) develop enquiry skills including the ability to critique the historical function of engineering and its role in society, to
appreciate and critique common ways of thinking, researching and practicing engineering as well as common modes of discourse; (5)
develop literacy skills including the ability to source, critique, assess reliability of, and potential bias of, information from a variety of
sources and properly reference these; (6) demonstrate enhanced creative thinking and appreciate the barriers to creative thought; (7)
develop the ability to critique, analyse the risk and synthesise data related to environmental, legal, ethical, health and safety impacts of
engineering; (8) demonstrate sensitivity and inclusivity towards cultural and gender diversity especially in relation to Indigenous
knowledge, values and culture; (9) develop a critical understanding of sustainability including the ability to apply that understanding
throughout a project life cycle; (10) develop an understanding of the environmental, social and economic context in which engineering is
practised; (11) develop the ability to recognise and diagnose common failure modes of tools, components, structures and materials;
(12) appreciate the difference between ill-structured and well-structured engineering problems and demonstrate the ability to frame an
ill-structured design problem in terms of functions, objectives and constraints; (13) identify critical design parameters and understand
their use in guiding design decisions; and (14) utilise a systematic method for qualitatively evaluating a range of alternative design
candidate solutions.
This unit uses the most up to date, interactive, fun and yet construtive teaching and learning approaches and all of our 'facilitators' or
teachers have been especially selected for skills appropriate to the unit and also trained to a very high level. The learning will
sometimes seem challenging and different to other units but you will have a lot of fun and engage with the ideas in ways which will
ultimately help you learn them in a very deep way.
Assessment
Assessment overview
Typically this unit is assessed in the following way(s): (1) a project proposal; (2) presentations; (3) design project; and (4) weekly
progress report and attendance. Further information is available in the unit outline.
Assessment mechanism
# Component
1
2
3
4
5
15%
15%
10%
50%
10%
Ongoing
Weekly
Week 5
Week 13
Week 13
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Assessment items
Item Title
Description
Attendance and
participation
Final Oral
presentation
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