Systems Design Engineering (SYDE) and Biomedical Engineering (BME) welcomed incoming undergraduate students with First Year Design Dayz.
SYDE and BME students kicked off their undergraduate degree programs with Design Dayz, a department orientation tradition in its sixth year. Each Design Dayz offers new activities, with the core goals of community building, teamwork, and design culture.
“Design Dayz is equal parts skill building and establishing a supportive environment,” said Design Dayz co-organizer Professor Jennifer Howcroft. “It is a time when our faculty and staff come together to welcome our new first year students, share our departmental design culture, and have some fun.”
This year’s event marked the second Design Dayz hosted online. Students were welcomed by Design Dayz co-organizers Professor Howcroft and Professor Matt Borland, and the department faculty executive, Professors Lisa Aultman-Hall, Andrea Scott, and Bryan Tripp. Members of the administrative staff team and first year instructors also participated in welcoming the new students and joined for the class photo.
Speaking to the importance of these welcomes, Professor Borland commented, “Getting a chance to break down the barriers between the instructional team, our SYDE staff, and students is a great opportunity to start building our SYDE & BME community from day one.”
Forced Connections
Sharing the departmental culture of iterative design online meant hosting design activities tailored to the virtual environment and team building. One activity called ‘Forced Connections’, aimed to promote design ideation and out of the box thinking through a design ideation technique that combines disparate concepts to create something unexpected. Randomly assigned student teams of five to six students designed an alarm clock that incorporates concepts from two lists of unrelated words, such as ‘whimsical’ and ‘quiet’ or ‘futuristic’ and ‘fuzzy’.
“This activity forces connection on many levels,” said Professor Borland. “We’re asking students who are meeting each other for the first time to find common ground and be creative with the unrelated concepts to design something unique.”
Each team shared their design sketch with classmates on the Teams channel so other students could share feedback through reactions and comments. The most ‘liked’ design earned the Student Choice Award prize. The winning team from BME Design Dayz was “Milky Wake Up” designed by Team 10: Sophie Xie, Luke Coulter, Joel Man-Yun Lee, Erica Liu, and Emily Rose. The SYDE Design Dayz winner was “Shoot to Snooze” designed by Team 8: Phoebe Wang, Zied Masmoudi, Ananya Jaikumar, Gurpreet Singh Multani, Sebastian Mendoza, and Daniel Kim.
BME Student Choice Award winning design, “Milky Wake Up” by Team 10: Sophie Xie, Luke Coulter, Joel Man-Yun Lee, Erica Liu, and Emily Rose. The design inspiration came from the concepts ‘futuristic’ and ‘alien’.
SYDE Student Choice Award winning design, “Shoot to Snooze” by Team 8: Phoebe Wang, Zied Masmoudi, Ananya Jaikumar, Gurpreet Singh Multani, Sebastian Mendoza, and Daniel Kim. The design inspiration came from the concepts ‘futuristic’ and ‘alien’.
Programming Cyclone
The next activity took inspiration from a 2020 Design Dayz software-based activity created by Professor Igor Ivković. Led by SYDE instructor Jason Foster and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Professor George Freeman, students worked in teams to develop their programming skills by creating code for a ‘Cyclone’ type arcade game. The goal of the game is for players to earn points for stopping a moving light at a desired location on the playing surface. After modifying the block code, teams verified the game is programmed correctly by competing against each other for high scores.
The activity is an authentic yet playful way to expose students to programming challenges they will encounter in academic courses.
“Students are coming in with different levels of coding experience, so this gives them a chance to learn from each other,” said Foster. “Collaboration is essential in our programs, so this activity helps to drive that message home.”
Peter Foster, Playing the Cylcone Arcade Game iPhone app, 2020. Accessed on Sep 5th, 2020. Available via YouTube: https://youtu.be/Dng7j_JUItM
Block coding used to program the Cyclone game on Make Code.
Continuing the tradition
The 2021 Design Dayz organizing committee credit much of the success of the event to its original creators, Professors Igor Ivković, Thomas Willett, and Michele Bristow. This year was the first Design Dayz since Professor Ivković passed suddenly in November 2020. Known for his passion for teaching and kindness, the SYDE and BME Design Dayz are just one example Professor Ivković’s legacy within the University community.
The organizing committee would also like to recognize Professors Maud Gorbet and Carolyn MacGregor for their contributions since the event began in 2016. The leadership and support from Professors Ivković, Willett, Bristow, Gorbet, and MacGregor have made Design Dayz a valuable aspect of the SYDE and BME first-year experience.
“This year’s event continues the tradition of Design Dayz being the unofficial, official welcome of our first-year students. We hope everyone had a great time and are looking forward to a successful fall semester.” said Professors Howcroft and Borland.
The Professors Howcroft and Borland would like to thank staff, faculty, and students who have participated throughout the years to make Design Dayz a success!