¡EUREKA! DESIGN OF FLOATING LUMINARIES ON WATER: A LEARNING CHALLENGE IN ENGINEERING
Year: 2023
Editor: Buck, Lyndon; Grierson, Hilary; Bohemia, Erik
Author: Patino Santa, Luis Fernando; Isaza Saldarriaga, Juan Felipe
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Eafit University, Colombia
Section: The effect that design and engineering have on global co-habitation
DOI number: 10.35199/EPDE.2023.10
ISBN: 978-1-912254-19-4
Abstract
The learning space in the 21st century, cannot be limited to a closed enviroment within a classroom. It is important to push the limits of both, creativity and innovation on the mind of the apprentice. Mixing apparently dissimilar topics, awakening intrinsic motivation and following a design methodology are the keys to achieve an efficient learning. Challenge based on learning, it is an integrative pedagogical approach that combines experience, cognition, and behavior. This approach, takes advantage of students' interest in finding practical meaning to education, while developing key skills competencies in a world mediated by rapid technological advance and sustainability. On this paper, a pedagogical strategy is exposed to impact first-year students in the application of a design methodology and the development of competencies in graphic expression, manufacturing, critical thinking, and tolerance to frustration. These skills, were obtained from the challenge of designing, materializing and testing a floating luminaire that works from solar energy. These prototypes, were manufactured with sustainable materials and processes, considering as an aesthetic/formal referent the work of Ersnt Haeckel and as a physical principle, Archimedes' law to achieve buoyancy and stability on water. The satisfying outcome of this learning experience, consisted on 56 luminaries that enlightened and floated over the water mirror of the cultural center of the XXXX´s university library, Luis Echavarría Villegas.
Keywords: Learning challenges, Sustainability, Solar energy, Creativity, Luminarie, Bouyancy.