Background: Berkeley's College of Engineering is evolving into a new model where all students admitted as Freshmen will be considered Undeclared majors. They will enroll in a Common Freshman Year Curriculum, which includes basic math, science, humanities, common to all majors. Part of this Curriculum will be a new required course: Introduction to Engineering Design and Analysis (IEDA). The goal of this new course is to expose students to each of the Engineering Majors and to give them hands-on exposure to the practice of engineering.
The IEDA course will begin with 3 weeks general introduction to all students, and then students will be divided to take 3 week self-contained "modules," where freshmen will pursue team projects related to individual Majors. One of these modules will be Introduction to IEOR Design and Analysis (IIDA).
Your assignment: design an IIDA module.
Each IIDA module should be organized around the 3 week period (3 one hour lectures per week) and should be focused around a single compelling, challenging, and at the same time fun design and analysis project. The IIDA module should provide freshman with a relevant, and hopefully positive, experience about the IEOR Major. The IIDA module should be self-contained (ie, assume high-school level math and science skills such as calculus), although it is fine to ask freshman to go online or to the library to learn more about a topic. The IIDA modules should enhance students critical thinking, communication, and design skills and expose them to the IEOR field.
The IIDA module project should start with an Introduction lecture, providing background about the IEOR major, then in subsequent meetings, an introduction to and motivation behind the design project. The IIDA module should include one or two lectures on relevant mathematical analysis/simulation techniques with examples, and the structure (guidelines/constraints/tools/schedule) for teams to follow.
You might ask freshmen to build prototypes using available materials and computing resources, whatever they can scrounge up (this is certainly an important engineering skill!)