| Abstract: | In engineering education, design provides an excellent project-based environment in which to teach the fundamentals of synthesis, analysis and decision-making. It is proposed to create a computer-based teaching tool which provides a close simulation of the design environment. All activities of design, i. e. problem definition, conceptualizing, analysis, decision-making and documentation, are envisioned to be part of the simulation, which should be flexible in its use and highly interactive, with the student in full control for maximum learning benefit. While some real difficulties are foreseen in simulating the conceptual and intuitive areas of the design process, the more structured aspects of the design process are already computerized in engineering practice. Restricting the proposed simulation to a specific field of design should make the development of such a teaching tool entirely possible |
