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This paper details a mechanical engineering course in toy design developed at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (Milwaukee, WI, USA). The course was motivated by the need to develop design experiences that integrate societal constraints, as well as the desire to integrate concepts from general education coursework into the engineering curriculum. In this team-taught course, students learn concepts from the area of child developmental psychology, and then use these concepts to inform their design efforts in the design and development of a toy or game to meet specific developmental needs of a specific age group. Student teams take the project from concept to prototype, then play-test their toys and games with children. This paper covers the background and motivation for the course, the topical coverage in both the psychology and engineering areas required for successful implementation, and project descriptions from a recent implementation of the course. Advice for those who wish to develop a similar offering, based on both instructor and student feedback, will be summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of examples from engineering practice in the classroom is a key to generating student interest and motivation. Ideal examples allow students to apply both concepts from course material and creative problem-solving methodology to a 'real world' problem. While open-ended design problems are often used as case studies in upper-level engineering courses, students in the early phases of their academic career often lack the background necessary to handle even simple design case studies with proficiency. Therefore, the practical use of design case studies is extremely limited in first two years of an engineering curriculum, and is limited to trivial exercises or closed-ended parametric optimization problems. As an alternative, case studies involving the investigation and reconstruction of accidents involving engineering systems can be employed. Such case studies allow the students to demonstrate their engineering problem-solving skills, requiring the students to propose a likely accident scenario and prove their scenario using engineering analysis and the formal scientific method. In this paper, the use of forensic engineering case studies in an introductory mechanics course sequence is outlined. Three case studies involving the use of statics, dynamics, and mechanics of materials are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]