Freshman Preference Seminar
Offered by: Mechanical Engineering | Taught by: Larry Leifer | Number of units: 3 to 5
Course Description: This is a project-based-learning course that will emphasize direct experience, practical design thinking, and the building of real product prototypes. No prior design experience or fabrication skills are required. Our ideas will be grounded on your background life experiences and observation of "human needs" on campus today. In previous years, we redesigned the Roble Hall commons area and Wallenberg Hall interactive classrooms. This year, we will design the "iLoft" at the Stanford Center for Design Research (Bldg. 560, where the class will meet). We will work in teams of three or four people with a coach from last year's course and online collaboration technology.
This course is motivated by the realization that we live and work in a human-built environment. More dramatically, we ourselves are designed by others through bioengineering and biotechnology. From a design-philosophy perspective, it is imperative that we take responsibility for and help guide the ethics of these design processes. Accordingly, I like to quote Herbert Simon, who said in The Sciences of the Artificial (1969), "If I have made my case, then we can conclude that in large part, the proper study of mankind is the science of design, not only as the professional component of a technical education but as a core discipline for every liberally educated person."
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