CREATIVITY AND ENGINEERING DESIGN: ANALYSIS INTO THE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

CREATIVITY AND ENGINEERING DESIGN: ANALYSIS INTO THE
EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
A. Martin-Erro, M. Dominguez, M.M. Espinosa
UNED-ETSII (Ingeniería del Diseño)

THE NEED OF CREATIVITY FOR ENGINEERING DESIGN
There is a common perception that engineers aren´t creative, or even that they do not need
it. On the contrary, creativity is essential for engineering .
A creative strategy is then the adequate way for solving engineering problems and for
industrial innovation.
Creativity is a key factor in engineering design problems, since concept ideation to detail as
well as manufacturing.
CREATIVITY AND ENGINEERING DESIGN: ANALYSIS INTO THE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT A. Martin-Erro, M. Dominguez , M.M. Espinosa

THE NEED OF CREATIVITY FOR ENGINEERING DESIGN
There are various creative techniques.These can be identified from various perspectives: logical, intuitive
or visual:
· Logical (e.g. TRIZ)
· Intuitive (e.g. Brainstorming )
· Visual e.g. (Mind Mapping, Brainsketching)
Apart of creative methods, Visual thinking is a practice of using pictures to solve problems, clearly linked
with creativity.
For engineering design practice, visual thinking is essential: Design Engineers think visually in a great
amount, using visual tools (Mind maps, sketching) to think, communicate and store their ideas.
Sketching is considered the principal approach by which design engineers externalize their concepts and
where the drawings provide visual clues for refinement and revision.

CREATIVE BEHAVIOR OF DESIGN ENGINEERS
To see how creativity is present on real engineering design practice, we made a comparative
study with engineering professionals and industrial designers about what conceptual design
resources they apply, including creative methods applied and tools required for creative
design tasks. Martin-Erro, 2014)
Results of these studies showed that creative behavior of design engineers is not as desired,
less than industrial designers, and in some manner engineers applies improperly.
Engineers applies Visual thinking methods, lower than industrial designers: sketching
practice is less used than designers. In addition, Engineers applies CAD in conceptual design
stages, when creativity plays a key role, more frequently than sketching
[Martin-Erro, A., Espinosa-Escudero, M., Dominguez-Somonte, M.. (2015). METHODS AND TOOLS APPLIED ON CONCEPTUAL DESIGN PROCESS:
RESULTS OF AN EMPIRICAL STUDY. DYNA, 90(4). 380-385. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6036/7212

CREATIVITY AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Causes of this deficient creative behavior by engineers can be allocated in engineering
education: as engineers do not apply properly creative techniques or adopt a creative attitude is
because they are not taught how to do that.
Presence of creativity at engineering schools is scarce or does not exist : engineering curricula
tends to enhance analytical subjects and a little creative thinking.
Creativity is not valued in engineering education Court (1998) (Kazerounian (2007).
The point is that the small percentage of decisions made by a design engineer on the basis of
the kind of calculation he has spent so much time to learn (Ferguson, 1992).
A. W. Court, “Improving creativity in engineering design education,” Eur. J. Eng. Educ., vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 141–154, 1998
Ferguson, E. S. (1994). Engineering and the Mind’s Eye. The MIT Press.
Kazerounian, K., & Foley, S. (2007). Barriers to creativity in engineering education: A study of instructors and students perceptions. Journal of
Mechanical Design, 129(7), pp. 761–768.

Engineering curricula makes students to be mathematically stronger, but less on graphics
and visual thinking skills.
Decrease in teaching hours for graphical subjects in modern engineering curricula (Mataix,
2014).
Moreover, Graphical subjects, even pays more attention to metric geometry and CAD
training, and so sketching practice is being totally displaced by modern computer-aided
tools.
Our perception is that sketching is not valued as a powerful visual thinking tool, and seen as
an old drawing method.
J. Mataix Sanjuán, “La habilidad espacial en los estudiantes de carreras técnicas. Desarrollo, medida y evaluación en el Marco europeo de Educación
Superior,” 2014.

Consequences are a limited experience of creative and critical thinking and analysis in, for
example, identifying needs to address and problems to solve, and in making critical
judgements on current issues with the risk to have “mediocre engineers” Ferguson, 1992).
The abuse of CAD means a decline in engineers spatial abilities which implies on Visual
Thinking capabilities to mentally analyze three-dimensional engineering problems. Authors
identify certain restrictions that CAD tools imposes on the designer during early design
(Taborda 2012) (Veisz, 2012)
E. S. Ferguson, Engineering and the Mind’s Eye, 4th ed., 1 vols. The MIT Press, 1994.
E. Taborda, S. Chandrasegaran, L. Kisselburgh, T. Reid, and K. Ramani, “Enhancing visual thinking in a toy design course using freehand sketching,” in
ASME international design engineering technical conferences and computers and information in engineering conference, 2012.
D. Veisz, E. Z. Namouz, S. Joshi, and J. D. Summers, “Computer-aided design versus sketching: An exploratory case study,” Artif. Intell. Eng. Des. Anal.
Manuf., vol. 26, no. 03, pp. 317–335, 2012.

APPROACHES TO INCLUDE CREATIVITY ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Approaches
Badran (2007) proposes a systematic approach to help develop the possible courses and activities that
would enhance creativity and innovation skills and capabilities of a graduate engineer
Baillie (2002) presents a model to consider the 'creative potential' in order to promote discussion about
appropriate education developments that may be incorporated within or be additional to an
engineering programme.
Torrance (1977) recommends several guidelines to promote creativity at lessons (Before and after).
Cases of inclusion of creative aspects at engineering curricula: Olin College and Worcester Polytechnic
Institute (Stoufer, 2004), as well as other cited by Bull, Montgomery, & Baloche (1995).
Badran, I. (2007). Enhancing creativity and innovation in engineering education. European Journal of Engineering Education, 32(5), pp. 573–585.
Torrance, E. P. (1977). Creativity in the Classroom; What Research Says to the Teacher.
Baillie, C. (2002). Enhancing creativity in engineering students. Engineering Science & Education Journal, 11(5), pp. 185–192
Bull, K. S., Montgomery, D., & Baloche, L. (1995). Teaching creativity at the college level: A synthesis of curricular components perceived as important
by instructors. Creativity Research Journal, 8(1), pp. 83–89
Stouffer, W. B., Russell, J. S., & Oliva, M. G. (2004). Making the strange familiar: Creativity and the future of engineering education. In Proceedings of
the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition pp. 20–23.

Richards, L. G. (1998). Stimulating creativity: teaching engineers to be innovators. In Frontiers in Education Conference, 1998. FIE’98. 28th Annual 3, pp.
1034–1039.
Masi, J. V. (1989). Teaching the process of creativity in the engineering classroom. In Frontiers in Education Conference, 1989. pp. 288–292
Approaches (II)
Richards (1998) offer several courses aimed at fostering creative and entrepreneurial thinking-
ranging from the first year to the graduate level at the University of Virginia.
Masi (1989) studied the incorporation of the process of creativity in four different courses, (materials
science, electron devices, electro optics, and electrical machinery).

We also identified some inclusion of creative subject on engineering educational programmes.
These are mainly on last courses, and not related to engineering design, but more oriented to
problem-solving according to new trends on enterprises creativity and innovation.
State of Graphical literacy remains the same, as we have not identified any effort to implement
sketching practice nor to enhance spatial abilities.

Teaching creative methods
One of the major difficulties in teaching design is that of creativity and the selection of the
appropriate tools and techniques Court (1998).
Creative resources, Richards (1998) suggest that students must learn how to capture and
manipulate ideas, and so it is necessary to provide tools for creating: physical such as a design
notebook, a reflective journal, and a sketchbook are valuable tools.
Computer programs for solid (3D) modeling, analysis, simulation, and visualization can be used
to capture, manipulate, and communicate our ideas.
Cognitive methods: ways of thinking, perceiving and evaluating information.
A. W. Court, “Improving creativity in engineering design education,” Eur. J. Eng. Educ., vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 141–154, 1998
1034–1039.

Approaches based on creative practice
Better than theoretical aspects on creativity, it is more useful to focus into a practical perspective:
Problem Based Learning: Problem-solving process calls the need for creativity, engineering students
shall nurture creativity through its practice. Some creative learning models are based on systematic
problem solving tasks (Liu, 2004).
Project Based Learning: Force engineering students make connections between courses and also to
seek out and solve problems at the boundaries of the engineering disciplines. Increase critical thinking
and self-direction, Higher comprehension and better skill development, self-motivated attitudes,
enhanced awareness of the benefits of teamwork and a more active and enjoyable learning process.
Design courses and including design activities: Reported cases of University of Virginia (design
project courses) by Richards (1998), as well as of University of Nevada-Reno and advanced systems
engineering students of the U.S. Naval Academy. Engineering programs in Hong Kong introduced
design subjects (Siu, 2012).
Liu, Z., & Schonwetter, D. J. (2004). Teaching creativity in engineering. International Journal of Engineering Education, 20(5), pp. 801–808.
Siu, K. W. M. (2012). Promoting creativity in engineering programmes: difficulties and opportunities. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, pp.
5290–5295.
1034–1039.

Exercise Visual Thinking and spatial abilities:
It is crucial to familiarize visual thinking to students, which means that they improve their fluency
and flexibility in the idea generation.
Early approaches were made by Standford University by a visual thinking specfic course.
Teaching Visual tecnhiques: Mind Mapping, Sketching
Enhancing spatial abilities: Apart of specific visual tools for creative practice, it is important to
recover spatial abilities which are necessary to a mental visual representation of design ideas.
Mataix proposed several specific courses.

Computer-aided tools oriented to creative work as an alternative to CAD
To correct the unproper use CAD, we consider current state-of-the-art computer applications
more adequate for creative work:
Computer-aided sketching, closest approach to a creative computer-aided tool, is, however the
less matured, achieving interesting goals just at academic environment .
Digital sculpting, Alcaide-Marzal (2013) reported experiences with design engineering students
at the Valencia Polythecnical University in the use of digital sculpting for creative design tasks.
Free solid modeling: Tools such as Sketchup, widely used in architecture and Industrial design.
Currently, these systems cannot substitute traditional sketching, but means an interesting spot to
quickly implement design ideas into a computational environment.
Alcaide-Marzal, J., Diego-Más, J. A., Asensio-Cuesta, S., & Piqueras-Fiszman, B. (2013). An exploratory study on the use of digital sculpting in conceptual
product design. Design Studies, 34(2), pp. 264–284.

A Model for creative fostering on engineering curricula
We propose an implementation model to incorporate creativity into the engineering curricula. The model is
based on creative enhancing by projects and mostly oriented to visual thinking practice. Enhancement of
proper use of computer applications must be applied to educational programs as well as the enhancement
of traditional tools, such as sketching, to foster visual thinking, and dihedral drawing on paper and pencil,
according to enhance spatial abilities, trying to let student to think visually in 3D.
• Introductory Syllabous courses at the freshman level, about creativity methods and tools.
• Inclusion of sketching practice on graphic expression course´s content, as well as descriptive
geometry using paper and pencil.
• Complement CAD training with new computer aided design tools, more applied to creative practice
such as Sketchup, Digital sculpting or Sketchbook.
• From the second year to later, apply creativity to real design processes to face some design
problems, by design project courses which follows PBL principles. Special attention shall be paid to
sketching practice, mind mapping and so schemes to these problem-solving tasks.

CONCLUSSIONS
The importance of implementing creativity education in the classroom has not been fully recognized,
being an open issue for universities: engineering curricula pays more attention to analytical subjects than
creative ones.
Some efforts were identified to include creative aspects of engineering curricula. In most of the cases,
visual thinking aspects are few considered, by our point of view, this must be taken into account,
regardless that visual thinking is paramount in engineering design.
We identified trends of including creative subjects on current engineering curricula. Although it is not as
optimal, we feel a change of attitude by academia to consider the value of creativity.
Our effort is to gradually begin to a new educational paradigm on engineers education.

CREATIVITY AND ENGINEERING DESIGN: ANALYSIS INTO THE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

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