Design Throughout the Biomedical Engineering Curriculum

Willis J. Tompkins

Department of Biomedical Engineering

University of Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Design Backbone

Biomedical engineering emphasizes design

Design course required every semester beginning the first semester sophomore year (6 sequential courses)

Students do client-based design projects in teams Tasks are real-world biomedical engineering design projects,

solicited primarily from medicine and life sciences faculty Juniors and sophomores work together (peer mentoring) for one

semester Seniors do capstone design

Why integrate design throughout the curriculum?

Design is the essence of engineering Design transforms knowledge into reality producing new

medical tools, devices, and technologies Biomedical engineering practitioners of the future will

need a strong command of design Design experiences prepare students for unforeseen

challenges

Sophomore 1

BME 200

Junior 1

BME 300

Sophomore 2

BME 201

Junior 2

BME 301

Senior 1(Capstone)BME 400

Senior 2

BME 402

BME Design Course Sequence

Continuity of design process

In 4-person design teams, first semester sophomores are paired with first semester juniors who peer-mentor them.

Second semester juniors begin a pilot project that will lead to a major design implementation in senior year.

First semester seniors complete implementation of their prototype as capstone design project.

Second semester seniors evaluate and document prototype as well as doing an outreach to K-12 students.

Students learn to:

Interact with clients to define the specifications for their projects

Use basic design principles for finding a variety of possible solutions and selecting the best solution

Find information from the web and other sources Implement physical prototypes

The client-based design experiences help students to:

Apply the knowledge learned in traditional courses to real-world problems and understand its relevance

Learn to solve real-world problems Learn to work with others in teams Develop leadership and communication skills Acquire a sense of professionalism Learn engineering skills and adopt innovative engineering

attitudes Gain confidence in their ability to solve increasingly

challenging design problems

Design course deliverables

Weekly e-mail team progress reports to advisor Weekly two-hour lecture/lab meetings with advisor Mid-semester PowerPoint presentations and end-of-

semester poster presentations Written project reports Engineering notebook Web site for project Prototype

One student from each design team participates in:

BSAC (Biomedical Student Advisory Committee) Discusses design course and general curriculum issues Provides regular feedback to faculty

BWIG (Biomedical Web Implementation Group) Responsible for the format and implementation of web sites for

each project at: www.cae.wisc.edu/~bmedesgn/ Trains new students in web techniques

Sample design projects

Valve for bodily fluid drainage for paralyzed individual Thermal warm/heat probe for neurological examination Instrumentation to study the startle response in primates Sensor for vestibular feedback system Device for rapid freezing of fruit flies Device to quantify swallowing behavior

BME students and faculty at poster session