Capstone Design Projects based on Invention Education · 2017-01-20 · Capstone Design Projects...
Transcript of Capstone Design Projects based on Invention Education · 2017-01-20 · Capstone Design Projects...
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Journal of Engineering Education ResearchVol. 15, No. 4, pp. 31~34, July, 2012
Capstone Design Projects based on Invention EducationJoon-Hwan ShimDepartment of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Korea Maritime University
ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the introduction of capstone design projects based on invention education in Department of Electronics
and Communication Engineering, Korea Maritime University. This course is referred to as Creative Engineering Design for spring semester of 4th-year undergraduates. The course focuses on creative thinking and cooperative mind to students by learning engineering design skills, realizing their idea through design project and recognizing practicality of their systems. To improve creative thinking of students, intellectual property (IP) education is very helpful. If engineering students take training program in IP, it will be very beneficial for CEOs to manage intellectual capital in many industries and to ensure competition power in their business. This study suggested that students take interest in connecting their ideas with inventions through invention education reinforcing an invention and a patent exercise. It is expected that this study may help to develop new curriculum of capstone design project including IP education in many universities.
Keywords: Invention education, Capstone Design Projects, Intellectual property
I. Introduction1)
In a knowledge-based economic society, there is a view
that national competitiveness is obtained by strengthening
the science base and developing Research and Development
(R&D) capacity. Especially, for a business to stay alive in
an era of infinite competition, many of global companies
are trying to respond effectively with new innovative
product development technology. To assure successful
product development, most innovative companies need the
most creative people and should construct educational
systems to keep highly skilled manpower.
Many companies these days are asking college graduates
to have abilities such as leadership, teamwork, communi-
cation skills, creative thinking. In order to develop student’s
abilities, many universities have opened engineering education
program which encourage students to develop the sense
of creativity in engineering. Through this program, they are
trying to develop engineering curriculum added an industry
partner program which allows the students to address more
significant and practical solving skills [1-3]. A creative
engineering design has now been developed and has become
Received 4 October, 2011; Revised 12 June, 2012Accepted 17 July, 2012† Corresponding Author: [email protected]
an integral and important component of engineering curri-
culum by these efforts. This subject helps students to
improve their engineering thinking and design idea. Thus
students are able to accomplish their projects successfully
through this subject. It also provides learning opportunities
in solving engineering problems through collaborative efforts
of team work as well as innovative and effective idea
creations and presentation skills [4-6].
Recently, with the increasing importance of the intellectual
property (IP), private firms and public institutions such as
universities, colleges and research institutes have em-
phasized the importance of intellectual property education.
Because most engineering students become engineers or
researchers of private companies and public institutions,
most universities should teach students about intellectual
property rights to be able to qualify creative and innovative
engineers [7-8]. Currently, most students don’t know to
protect their ideas and products by patents. Therefore, in
this study, I will propose a new curriculum of capstone
design project based on patent education and a way to
protect student’s new ideas or products through patents.
With this background, the purpose of this course is to provide
students with creative abilities to make new systems that
are technically sound, affordable, environmentally com-
patible and safe in research and development work.
Joon-Hwan Shim
공학교육연구 제15권 제4호, 201232
II. Invention Education and Promotion
1. Invention Education Program
In these days, IP education in Korean universities is sp-
reading gradually after Korean Intellectual Property Office
(KIPO) and Korea Invention Promotion Association (KIPA)
began the college’s IP education in 2006. In 2009, 10
graduate schools and 46 undergraduate schools conducted
IP educations and they opened about 250 IP classes. The
number of college, which opens IP class, is increasing every
year. Especially in a world of intensified IP competition
and conflict, the practical IP education is needed for college
students and the invention education plays a prominent
role in flourishing scientific and innovative thinking.
In Korea, KIPO and KIPA are responsible for invention-
related educational materials. And they are endeavoring
to develop and offer many contents related to patents,
designs, brands, trade secrets through systematic and
efficient invention education. Fig. 1 shows the web sites
Fig. 1 Web sites of KIPO and KIPA
Table 1 Basic course outline for invention education
Understanding of Invention and Patent Week 1
Intellectual Property Policies Week 2
Inventions and Configurations Week 3
Patent Information Week 4
Patent Search and Specification Survey Week 5
Practice of Patent Search and Specification Survey Week 6-7
Analysis of Drawings and Specification Week 8
Practice of Analysis of Drawings and Specification Week 9-10
Practice of Specification Writing Week 11-12
Practice of Patent Application Week 13-14
Evaluation and Summary Week 15
of KIPO and KIPA. KIPA provides on-line and off-line
invention educations for elementary, middle and high school
students.
The IP-Academy, national intellectual property portal
site, operates free IP education through e-learning program
for college students and industrial workers and people.
The basic contents of invention education for college
students are shown in Table 1. This course requires 2
hours of lectures per week for 15 weeks. It consists of
understanding of inventions and patents, idea creation,
analysis of drawings and specification, practice of specifi-
cation writing and patent application. Through this course
based on experiences and experiments, I think this would
be useful to foster creative talents in invention.
2. Invention Contests and Activities for Invention
Promotion
KIPA holds the Campus Patent Strategy Universiade which
is a competition for undergraduates and graduate school
student. It is designed to nurture their capabilities in dealing
with patent matters in an actual workplace. Participants
are required to choose from among a list of themes an-
nounced by the competition board, and have to present ideas
about how to set patent strategies for the their chosen
areas under the guidance of their professors. Outstanding
ideas can be adopted by companies, which makes this com-
petition a new type of industrial and academic collaboration
based on the concept of open innovation. The University
Creation Patent Competition is also held by KIPA as shown
Capstone Design Projects based on Invention Education
Journal of Engineering Education Research, 15(4), 2012 33
in Fig. 2. This causes students to create and develop new
knowledge. And KIPA supports invention clubs of college
students which provide students opportunities to express
themselves through the fabrication of innovative ideas as
shown in Fig. 3. Through various invention activities the
members have the opportunity to provide real world appli-
cations of knowledge gained through different majors. By
participation in events such as invention contests, the club
is a great medium for providing students with the under-
standing of technological trends of the world. Most students
who have taken part in invention contests have high desires
to learn IP knowledge and try to develop their own ideas
into inventions. When KIPA investigated the number of
participants and the level of invented products in invention
contests, they published that the number of participants
increased and the level of the products was improved each
year. Because the student given contest prizes can receive
financial incentives, the participated students greatly satisfy.
Thus if the course requirement of capstone design projects
Fig. 2 Winners of the University Creation Patent Competition in 2011
Fig. 3 Workshop of invention clubs of college in 2010
includes mandatory participation in the invention contest
with their own products, most students will try to build
creative innovative ideas and implement them.
III. Proposed Course Procedure
The creative engineering design is a required course
opened in the spring semester of 4th-year undergraduates
in Department of Electronics and Communication Engi-
neering, Korea Maritime University. This course focuses
on a practical approach to help students gain experience in
teamwork, communication, project management and technical
skills that will help them in their career paths [9]. Fig. 4
shows process steps operating in current class and Fig.
5 shows the proposed class procedures including invention
education to protect their project outcomes. The composed
team should firstly establish a basic conception for team
project and they investigate patent validity of their project
through patent prior-art search. After completing prior-art
search, they make a final project decision through brain-
Fig. 4 Process steps of current class
Fig. 5 Process steps of proposed class
Joon-Hwan Shim
공학교육연구 제15권 제4호, 201234
Table 2 Proposed course outline including invention edu-cation
Introductions and Team Formation Week 1
Team Building Exercises Week 1&2
Basic Project Concept & P1: Understanding of
Invention and PatentWeek 3
Project Proposal & P2: Patent Search and
Specification SurveyWeek 4
Project Design & P3: Analysis of Drawings and
SpecificationWeek 5
Detailed Project Design Week 6-7
1st Prototype Week 8-10
Final Product Week 11-12
Performance Test & P4: Practice of Patent
ApplicationWeek 13-14
Final Presentation and Exhibition Week 15
storming. And the final project product is made through
detailed design work and several prototyping. After that,
each team applies for patents through on-line patent ap-
plication service to obtain their patents of project outcomes.
Finally the final project results are displayed in a poster
gallery room to all students and all members of the faculty.
Table 2 is to propose course contents of the capstone
engineering design introducing invention education. This
course consists of three hours per week over 15 weeks.
In this course, the patent education is composed of four
main topics: understanding of invention and patent, patent
search and specification survey, analysis of drawings and
specification, practice of patent application.
IV. Conclusion
In this study, I proposed the new course of capstone
engineering design in order to develop creative thinking
and improve innovative ability of students through intellectual
property education. This approach can be used to set up
efficiently intellectual property education for different groups
in the capstone engineering design. In order to carry out
continuously creative engineering education, it is necessary
to improve and change the course contents of the capstone
engineering design considering economic importance of
knowledge. When suitable IP education is conducted for
engineering students, colleges may play an important role
in creating campus ventures and encourage companies to
recruit students or create an environment which attracts
new technology based start-up companies.
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심준환 (Shim, Joon-hwan)
He received the M.S. and Ph. D. degrees from Kyungpook
National University in 1993 and 1998. He was a Visiting
Professor in Texas University at Arlington. He is currently
a professor in Dep. of Electronics and Communications
Engineering at Korea Maritime University in Pusan, Korea.
Phone: +82-51-410-4811
Fax: +82-51-404-3986
E-mail: [email protected]