Collaborative Design

By Carter Henson
July 12, 2024

Two hundred and fifty dollars, an idea, a semester of hard work and a final presentation to a panel of Shark Tank-like judges – this is how a collection of students breaks traditional classroom barriers annually at JBU.

Enter: Collaborative Design Lab, a strategic, innovative, interdisciplinary class that leverages expertise from business, graphic design, engineering, and computer science students. Crafting a fully functional product, app, brand, and business plan is not something every college student can say they have done, but now these students can.

“This is a really unique thing that we do at JBU that sets us apart from large universities,” said Kim Cornett, instructor of electrical engineering.

At the start of the semester, students from the different disciplines are split into teams and tasked with creating a consumer product that leverages electrical and mechanical engineering and software. While the engineering and computer science students work to build a functional prototype, the business and graphic design students create the branding, craft a marketing plan, and calculate the financials for their company and its products.

Armed with $250 and cross-functional teams, they get to work ideating and creating their prototypes. This year, the teams developed products including a bike incident detector, a self-watering plant pot, a refrigerated medicine bag, an automated chicken watering device, a modular theft-resistant backpack, and a rewards-based chore chest for young kids. Cornett said a lot of work is put into the initial design phase to reward the teams with success later in the term.

“Sometimes students feel like the initial design phase is a waste of time, but if you don’t do good initial design work, that can hurt your company in the long run,” she said.

Doing strong work on the front end and collaborating with other departments were a few of the outcomes that computer science junior Hunter Keys said made the semester impactful.

“It was nice to interact and work with the engineers. While we’re in the same building, we don’t have that many classes to work together on projects like this,” said Keys, a member of Khiron, the team that created a bike crash detection system named Solo.

“We definitely learned how to adapt. We had a plan with the engineers on our app, but the plan didn’t work, so we had to come up with something else,” Keys said. Computer science students not only collaborated with engineers but also regularly engaged with business and graphic design students fostering a dynamic interdisciplinary exchange.

“Working with students in other majors was a lot easier than expected. It was great to be able to communicate with them on what we needed and what they needed from us,” said Keys.

After a semester of hard work, students pitched to a “Shark Tank” panel of local professionals, with Khiron and Solo claiming the top spot.

Cornett said this is the type of project students get asked about in interviews after graduation.

“The experience is priceless,” she said.

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