Abstract:

The education in universities needs to be cutting edge and context relevant. That is why research projects are the key for universities to work in novel topics and update the knowledge barrier. Sometimes these initiatives may be out of reach of undergraduate students, as those high-level projects are executed with graduate students and professors. However, nowadays education challenges in undergraduate education are precisely the opposite. It is of high interest for students to participate and to challenge themselves while facing research problems from applied or scientific projects. But what mechanisms may help to facilitate this? are undergraduate programs considering research credits? This article presents an experience about enriched research teams, that combines undergraduate students from Product Design Engineering, Physics Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, graduate students, experts and professors. At the same time, this mix enhances the project’s human resources capabilities as more people are involved. Consequently, this is a double-edge objective. While undergraduate students learn from their experience of participating in a real project, the project itself may benefit by counting with extra human resources represented in bigger research teams. Nevertheless, this robust teams come with some challenges. On one hand, students need to have a clear mechanism of participation. On the other hand, the project also needs to have this in mind to know what to expect as outcome from students. In this way, research and education are united in a single purpose, where undergraduate students work together with graduate students (from master and PhD levels), experts and the permanent accompaniment of professors, who propitiate and facilitate an adequate environment to develop projects, stimulate the scientific and professional growth of students through the search for sustainable solutions to different problems. To materialize this, a case study from the Design Engineering Research Group from Universidad EAFIT will be described. This experience is in the context of an Engineering Research Program called ENERGETICA 2030, which is a research alliance among 8 universities, 4 enterprises and 11 international partners to work around the Renewable Energies inclusion in the Colombian context. EAFIT University leads 4 of the 11 projects from the alliance where undergraduate students converge with graduate students, experts and professors. The article proposes a “research track” for students to participate. It starts with their participation in “Research Seeds” where they enter as volunteers and as a complement to their curricular activities, others, and after having passed a trial semester, are accepted to get academic credits, through courses such as “Special Projects” with 1 to 4 credits (1 Credit = 1h/week with teacher + 2h/week of individual work) or final projects. The article will focus on the design and development of a Photovoltaic Charging Station (PVCS) as part of the ENERGETICA 2030 commitments and, within the results, it will be possible to show how, from a combined, multidisciplinary and staggered structure, a conducive environment is generated that end-up by facilitating project development and also enriching the academy by providing students with novel technical knowledge and competencies, such as, leadership, collaborative work, teamwork, development of oral and written communication skills, among others.

Keywords:

Project Based Learning, Multidisciplinary Projects, Research Program, Renewable Energies.