Enhancing the Undergraduate Civil Engineering Experience through 3D-Printing, Problem-Based Learning Opportunities.

The relatively recent advent of additive manufacturing (or 3D printing) is an exciting opportunity to rapidly fabricate and test scale prototypes for undergraduate research and classroom demonstrations. 3D printing has already revolutionized the teaching of mechanical engineering, but applications in civil engineering have been somewhat limited to date. To leverage this emerging technology and provide a problem-based learning experience to students, a semester-long 3D-printing Dynamics Design (3D3) Competition was developed in conjunction with the undergraduate dynamics course. A select group of competition participants (or "3D3 Scholars"), who are concurrently enrolled in the junior-level course, completed four 3-4 week long challenges that are synchronous with concepts covered in the class, including rigid body kinematics and structural dynamics. By the end of the semester, each student will have designed, constructed, and tested a single-story building structure excited by a functional shake table, both of which are primarily fabricated out of 3D-printed components. This paper focuses on the inaugural semester of the 3D3 Competition (Fall 2021). Four female undergraduate students--two civil engineers and two architectural engineers--were recruited in Spring 2021 to participate. To ensure that these students are benefiting and learning from the hands-on activities, the design competitions are used to evaluate the students' understanding of the concepts, as well as their ability to apply them in practice. The 3D3 Scholars were given post-competition surveys to determine in what ways they benefited from these exercises, with results indicating high self-efficacy. Feedback provided by the students will indicate directions for improvements in the competition to continuously improve it in subsequent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]