SMILE PROJECT 2018: CASE STUDY OF AN ENGINEERING SERVICE LEARNING PROJECT

“Smile project” is an Engineering Service Learning (ESL) project running “Beyond Engineering Education” (BEE) program [1]. BEE project aims to prepare engineering students to face today’s world challenges through an ESL model based on design process for real issues [2],.
Smile Project aims to make local people smile based on technical support through solving local issues, while educating at the same time engineering students to have a service mind. The students are divided in teams and the roles are distributed among team members, and a manager supports the work of all team members all over the project.

The project is currently conducted with coordination of ENSA El Jadida (ENSAJ) [3] and Pusan National University [4]. It counts already four editions. The fourth edition is the object of the case study presented in this paper. It took took place in El Haouzia, next to El Jadida, from 3 to 13 July 2018. It involved 12 Korean students and 8 Moroccan students, in addition to 4 managers and 4 staff. Two of the teams worked in a kinder garden, while the two others were in a women association teaching women how to make traditional clothes. The teams in the kinder garden worked on making two educational toys for children (traffic board and light alphabets) while the two teams in women, association worked on learning tools for women (sewing table and multifunction board).

This paper presents the editions of Smile projects and its organization, as well as the outcomes of the project. The outcomes are presented through the process that the students have to follow during its realization. It shows the effectiveness of such approach in developing technical and non-technical skills of the students in a sustainable context.

The process starts with team building and enforcing using teamwork games and team slogan, rules and symbols definition. After that, contact starts with local community through a visit and greeting of local people, balloons making for children and interview with klocals to define the issues the teams can work on. The business model analysis is also researched in order to better understand the functioning of the visited areas. Solution design is then conducted from concept to manufacturing, and a purchasing session is organized in order to have necessary material for product realization from the local market. After that, the product making is launched following the previously designed time and members tasks plan, and it is concluded by a product in stalling and description for the manufacturing and the how-to-use. The results of the project are then shared through advertisement and presentation to professors/locals. A self—reflection session summarises students learning from the project. The progress of all these steps is daily shared and discussed with all the teams and staff, and a manager closely follows the work of the team. A student’s guidebook serves as a reference to students in order to follow the engineering process.

References:
[1] BEE Story Newsletter 2016 vol. 9, Pusan National University
[2] Project BEE: Concept and Model for Service Learning in Engineering, Young Bong Seo, Jiin Eom, O-Kaung Lim, The 4th International Research Symposium on Problem-Based Learning (IRSPBL) 2013
[3] http://www.ensaj.ucd.ac.ma/, accessed on July 11th 2018
[4] http://www.pusan.ac.kr/, accessed on July 11th 2018