Abstract
As a continuation of an existing project between Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT), the project was expanded to include Asia University (AU) of Taichung, Taiwan. With three institutions' participation, the duration and intensity of interaction was increased. Project selection for student teams at all institutions was initiated several weeks earlier than usual, and mutual project selection across each institution was encouraged. In Spring 2008, a project pre-selection list was generated by student teams at KIT. From this list, faculty and student teams at each of Asia University and Rose-Hulman collaborated to select three projects from the initial list. The three projects were offered to a Senior Design section at Rose-Hulman, and one team of four students selected a related project to perform initial literature review and preliminary lab experimentation. The selected project was in the realm of solar energy performance. The pre-selection and down selection from the project list, and the project work from the Senior Design team, were new activities that had not been included in the four previous offerings of the course. Assessment objectives and data are discussed in this paper. The majority of the students that participated in the assessment poll indicate that taking the course reinforces their knowledge of the Design Process. Students also report that they are relatively comfortable in communicating engineering and design concepts to faculty and students from a foreign country.
