Abstract:

During the 18-19 academic year, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) was selected together with two more European Universities to participate in the 2018 ESA Concurrent Engineering Challenge (ESA CEC). The project aimed to combine Challenge-Based Learning as an active learning methodology, and Concurrent Engineering (CE) as a design methodology in the scope of tertiary education. A group of Master Students in Aerospace Engineering, supervised by professors and professionals from industry, took part in the experience, which consisted in the preliminary design of a space mission following the CE approach. The project was executed in an integrated environment, where students complemented their technical knowledge, familiarized themselves with the CE approach and its benefits, and learnt how ESA assesses the feasibility of real space missions.

The experience was so enriching for both students and professors, and provided such positive results from the point of view of learning, motivation, teacher-student relationship and development of transversal skills, that it was decided to repeat it in following years. However, given that having participated in previous editions of the ESA CEC is in practice exclusive for upcoming calls, the (so-called) UPM Concurrent Engineering Challenge was organized. Its first edition, led by the UPM, was executed during the 19-20 academic year.

This work describes the development, planning and implementation of the 1st UPM CEC, as well as the main educational impact and difficulties of this experience and the ESA CEC.

Keywords:

Challenge-Based Learning, Concurrent Engineering, Aerospace Engineering.