Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Unit Outline
All material reproduced herein has been copied in accordance with and pursuant to a statutory licence administered by
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL), granted to the University of Western Australia pursuant to Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968
(Cth).
Copying of this material by students, except for fair dealing purposes under the Copyright Act, is prohibited. For the purposes
of this fair dealing exception, students should be aware that the rule allowing copying, for fair dealing purposes, of 10% of the
work, or one chapter/article, applies to the original work from which the excerpt in this course material was taken, and not to
the course material itself
The University of Western Australia 2001
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Unit details
Unit title
Unit code
Availability
Location
Credit points
Mode
Face to face
Contact details
Faculty
School
School website
Unit coordinator
Email
Telephone
Consultation hours
Unit contact hours
Online handbook
Other contact details
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.
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 beginning August 25
Week beginning October 27
Week beginning October 27
Assessment items
Item Title
Description
Attendance and
participation
Weekly Progress
Reports
Project proposal and Each team will submit a project proposal according
first oral presentation to the Unit guidelines in week 5 (Practical Workshop
4). Students will be also asked to give a five minute
team presentation, discussing your project proposal
(each student must speak). You will receive critique
and feedback from the other teams.
Project report
Final Oral
presentation
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Recommended texts
There is no text book for this unit. You should however purchase the Course Reader from the Co-op Bookstore; this contains a detailed
description of the Unit, including the activities and readings for each Information Session, and a Guide to the Practical Workshops. The
Course Reader should be available for purchase by the first week of semester.
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