COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE STUDENT'S DESIGN PROCESS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TEACHING OF LATER PHASES OF THE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN PROCESS

Most methods that guide the designer through the later phases of the design process are general in nature, and it is up to the designer to organize the design work using the tools and techniques available. This process also relies greatly on experience, which is quite a challenge for students, who are mostly novices in the area. In a comparative study, the evolution of the experience and skills acquired by the students in performing design tasks during the embodiment design and detail design phases has been analyzed. The re-sults indicate the main directions for improvement in teaching the later phases of the mechanical engineer-ing design process.