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Abstract
Current engineering education challenges require approaches that promote scientific, technical, design and complementary skills while fostering autonomy, innovation and responsibility. The European Project Semester (EPS) at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) (EPS@ISEP) is a one semester project-based learning programme (30 European Credit Transfer Units (ECTU)) for engineering students from diverse scientific backgrounds and nationalities that intends to address these goals. The students, organised in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams, are challenged to solve real multidisciplinary problems during one semester. The EPS package, although on project development (20 ECTU), includes a series of complementary seminars aimed at fostering soft, project-related and engineering transversal skills (10 ECTU). Hence, the students enrolled in this programme improve their transversal skills and learn, together and with the team of supervisors, subjects distinct from their core training. This paper presents the structure, implementation and results of the EPS@ISEP that was created in 2011 to apply the best engineering practices and promote internationalisation and engineering education innovation at ISEP.
Acknowledgments
EPS@ISEP thanks Prof. Jørgen Hansen, for the support provided to the launching of the EPS programme at ISEP in 2011, ISEP board of direction, International Relations Office, departments, laboratories and technicians, EPS@ISEP lecturers, supervisors and consultants, the Autonomous Systems Laboratory R&D unit, Gislótica, SOPSEC, Alto Perfis Pultridos and ITSector companies and the attending students.
About the authors
Benedita Malheiro holds a five-year degree in Electrical Engineering, a M.Sc. in Electrical and Computers Engineering and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computers Engineering from the University of Porto. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto and a researcher at Autonomous Systems Laboratory, Intelligent Systems and Robotics unit, INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal. Her research interests are in distributed, dynamic, decentralised intelligent problem-solving and engineering education.
Manuel Silva was born in 11 April 1970. He graduated and received the M.Sc. and the Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal, in 1993, 1997 and 2005, respectively. Presently he is Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Department of Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on modelling, simulation, robotics, multi-legged walking robots, climbing robots, biological inspired robots and fractional order control.
Maria Cristina Ribeiro holds a five-year degree in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, a M.Sc. in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Porto, Portugal. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Physics Department of the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto and a researcher at INEB – Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Porto, Portugal.
Pedro Guedes holds a five-year degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Porto, Portugal and a M.Sc. in Systems Control from the University of Technology of Compiègne, France. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Mathematics Department and a researcher at Autonomous Systems Laboratory of the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto.
Paulo Ferreira holds a five-year degree in Electrical Engineering and a M.Sc. in Electrical and Computers Engineering from the University of Porto, Portugal. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Informatics Engineering Department of the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal.