Thoughts on iFoundry

So now that the semester is nearly over, I have a better realization of what the purpose of iFoundry is. Also, keeping in mind this is a pilot course, there are some aspects of iFoundry that I don't think were necessary, and some things I would add to the course.

For me, the iFoundry course has served as a better introduction into engineering than the standard ENG 100 course. I knew people in that class who gave presentations introducing themselves and stuff like that, but weren't properly introduced into their major at U of I. In that regard, I think ENG 198 did a great job. We had ELA's who gave presentations on various topics we would inevitably encounter at some point during college, and projects where we got a taste of what engineers actually do.

There are some things that I felt should be different, however. The first is timing. Now it would obviously be difficult for anyone to be able to predict how many weeks of classes it would take to build the projects we built, but we were definitely pressed for time on both projects. The first one was extended, which then cut into our time to work on the second one. The good news about project 2 was that we could work on it outside of class pretty easily, but there were issues that many groups had with getting parts they ordered in time for the next week's class. Now, my proposition to fix this is to make the ENG 198 course 2 hours long and 1 day a week. When we only had an hour to work on our project, we would waste valuable time getting out our materials and putting them away at the beginning and end of class, but having one class that is twice as long would eliminate this problem.

As for the lectures, I'm not so sure how much I actually learned from them. A lot of it was common sense (take initiative, be ethical, etc), and I honestly had hoped for information I couldn't have figured out on my own. For instance, a great lecture would be one on the things that engineers wish they had known going into college. Knowing what was coming in college would prepare us better for what was ahead. Regardless of what the lectures were about, time could be made for them by having this weekly schedule: lab, lab, lecture, lab lab, lecture, etc. This would give less lecture time and more lab time than the current course, but I think it's appropriate since I feel we learned a lot more from the labs than we did from the lectures. Also, having more time to work on labs would allow us to actually devote time to improving and optimizing our projects instead of simply getting them to work.

Overall, I am glad I took ENG 198 as opposed to ENG 100. I really do feel we learned more about Engineering at U of I, and the projects were pretty cool to work on. Most of the hiccups we ran into were simply because it is the first time this was done at U of I, and I think that over time the problems will get smoothed out.