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Integrated design of complex Natural Resources engineering projects; professional and teamwork analysis; economic, environmental, and bicultural issues; life-long learning.
Integrated Civil/Natural Resources Engineering Design is an essential course in your civil/natural resources engineering education. Unlike the majority of your lecture courses that focus on providing you with the fundamentals of engineering science, whether it be in soil mechanics, materials, solid mechanics or any of the other disciplines covered in your programme, Integrated Design aims to provide you with a realistic design experience, where the focus is on the identification of required information, self-learning, application of discipline-specific skills and knowledge, and development of professional design skills.While studying civil/natural resources engineering it is tempting to see engineering problem-solving as being associated with analysing design details – for example, the pump in a water supply system, the beams used in a building, or the piles for the foundations of a bridge. While civil/natural resources engineers are very much concerned with such details, they must also be able to take on large-scale, complex projects and conceptualise solutions that achieve the specific design goals for the project, while at the same time being technically feasible, financially viable, environmentally sustainable, and socially and culturally acceptable. Such large-scale projects never have a single, clear solution. Many factors need to be considered in making design decisions and your creativity as a professional engineer plays a key role in producing a solution that meets the goals of your client.The success of such large-scale projects is grounded in the engineering science of the core civil/natural resources engineering disciplines, but that engineering science in itself is insufficient to handle these complex problems and to produce design solutions that satisfy the many, and often conflicting, requirements.Our goal in this course is to require you to think in a different way to the detailed design problems with which you are rather more familiar. At times, this experience will feel disconcerting. There will not be hard and fast rules to fall back on in making your design decisions. You will not be able to look over the shoulder of others working on the same project to see if they have the right answer, as there simply is not a “right” answer. This “blank sheet” type problem where your creativity, reinforced by your technical knowledge, is free to explore multiple possible solutions and weigh up their advantages and disadvantages against a set of requirements imposed by your client, the local consenting authority and other stakeholders, is exciting, challenging and liberating. This notion of working for a client and finding solutions that satisfy their needs, and that help them to achieve their goals, is a fundamental aspect of engineering practice.To achieve this goal the course is designed around a real and complex project that you may encounter in your future professional career. The course resources and activities are specifically designed to support your development as a design engineer such that by the end of the course you will possess a range of skills that will enable you to approach such problems with some degree of confidence.In order to bring the flavour of the professional world to the classroom, you will do the majority of the work in this course as part of a team. Your teamwork will be supported by practising engineers. Their perspective will provide you with an insight into how professional design engineers approach complex problems. In addition, academics will provide guidance throughout the course.
At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:Identify constraints and requirements given a client-focused design brief (including appropriate consideration for public health and safety, whole-life cost, net-zero carbon, resource, cultural, societal, and environmental considerations)Identify information requirements and select appropriate information from open literature and other resources.Creatively develop and then evaluate systematically evaluate alternative solutions in all relevant contexts to select the most suitable solution. Develop the most suitable solution to the preliminary design level.Formulate the most suitable solution in coherent and concise written form, with appropriate client focus; Demonstrate to function effectively within a diverse design team in a multi-disciplinary setting under engineering consulting practice conditions;Apply engineering management principles to a design project;Apply economic decision-analysis processes for a design project.Demonstrate an ability to be bi-culturally competent and confident in a project typical for civil and natural resources engineers.Recognise the need for, and have the preparation and ability for independent learning and life long learning.
This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:
Employable, innovative and enterprising
Students will develop key skills and attributes sought by employers that can be used in a range of applications.
Biculturally competent and confident
Students will be aware of and understand the nature of biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, and its relevance to their area of study and/or their degree.
Engaged with the community
Students will have observed and understood a culture within a community by reflecting on their own performance and experiences within that community.
EMTH210, ENCI199, ENCN201, ENCN213, ENCN221, ENCN231, ENCN242, ENCN253, ENCN261, ENCN281, ENCN301, ENCN371, ENCN375
ENCI313, ENNR313
ENCI413
Students must attend one activity from each section.
Professional development:Throughout the semester you will investigate various professional development options (e.g. attend professional talks, symposiums, webinars, workshops, etc.), reflect on them (write notes), and then develop a plan for your future development (essay format). This includes two designated sessions.Workshops:Weeks 1-5 and 7-10: You work on various workshop activities facilitated by academics and teaching assistants.Weeks 6 and 10 &11: Industry professionals and academics are available for questions regarding the deliverables.TutorialsWeek 1: This is a project-specific tutorial on site scoping run by lecturers and teaching assistants.Week 2: This is a 1-2 hr discipline-specific tutorial run by industry professionals, whereby each engineer works with those students that cover a particular discipline of the design.Weeks 3-5 and 7-10: These are 2 hr discipline-specific tutorials run by industry professionals and/or academics, whereby each engineer and/or academic works with those students that cover a particular discipline of the design.Weeks 6 and 11: Industry professionals and academics are available for questions regarding the deliverables that are due at the end of these weeks.
Hamish Mackey
Alex Ross
Roger Chen
A number of academic and industry tutors are also involved in this course.
1 Design reports are interlinked, and therefore time spent on one may also contribute to another of the related assessments. 2 Team reports will be given as a group mark, and adjusted according to individual contributions based on the Peer and Self Evaluation.3 Teamwork reflection report and Professional development activities report must receive grades of 50% or greater to pass the course. One resubmission, course grade based of first submission grading.4 Quiz is pass/fail and must be passed to pass the course. Maximum 3 attempts.5 Teamwork reflection report includes 5 pre-submissions that are ungraded but compulsory. 1% final course grade reductions apply for late submission, applied to different reports.6 Grades for late submissions will be reduced as follows: 0-6 h: 25%, 6-24 h: 50%, 24+ h: zero grade.
Readings and pre-recorded videos will be provided to support the course. These will be provided on the course’s LEARN site. Students are expected to supplement this with materials that they find on their own. Please note that all lecture recordings, made available through LEARN, are copyright and are not for public dissemination.
Domestic fee $2,328.00
International fee $11,500.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Civil and Natural Resources Engineering .