Teaching is an area that should be in a constant ongoing development or should at least be a processquestioned and revised according to the fact that the society, the students and new knowledge aboutteaching methods are not static. Whether teaching needs to change in terms of how it can enhancestudent learning opportunities must always be subject to an ongoing process. This article describes thisneed and how changes are made to improve students learning in one of the courses in the IndustrialDesign engineering program. The set up in a program like this is a compromise between two differentprofessions as in this case between mechanical engineers and industrial designers. This is a challengethat is tainted with some problems. One of these problems is to accommodate both professions in thesame application. These compromises are never optimal solutions and this have the result that somesubjects have to disappear or be minimized from each profession. Traditionally design trainingprograms contains more of hands on education than machine engineering programs and students inindustrial Design programs are also expected to have some basic knowledge already when applyingwhen applying to their educational program. Some examples of hands on courses as Model makingand sketching cannot be studied only as theory, skills in this case needs training and also timeprovided to allow the knowledge to mature. This article describes an attempt to improve this twoprofession trade-off and how to improve learning in both practical skills and theoretical skills by anew course design. The article also shows how this example could be of interest for other programsand other courses.

Sketching is a fast way to explore or communicate ideas and can be done instantly with almost noplanning. Sketches are quick, dynamic and iterative. They can be made in many ways but aretraditionally created by using pen and paper. This is one of the most efficient tools to trigger thecreative process and keep it going. In the educational context where sketching and artistic skills are acompromise between traditional engineering and traditional Design education some problems can beidentified. At the Industrial Design engineering program at Lulea University of Technology (LTU) thestudents are accepted on their grades only, and students attending sketch classes at LTU come from awide range of backgrounds. As a result of this the sketching education must be tailored for studentsranging from experienced level to inexperienced. When there are a lot of students and time is limited,learning activities must be implemented according to this reality. A way to speed up the learningprocess is to reduce the cognitive load. Too many possibilities and factors confuse students that areinexperienced in the field. The activities should also help keeping the rate of practice up and eliminatethings that are not part of the intended learning outcome. This paper shows how a simple change oftools in the sketching class makes huge impact on the progress and discusses the mechanisms behindthe effect.Keywords: Mechanical, engineer, creativity, sketching, design

Preparing students for real life is a main issue for education programs. At Luleå University of Technology, (LTU), this is done by a range of different course layouts and course assignments. Students studying at the Industrial Design Engineering program practice this as group work, workshops and individual assignments always based on the intention to be as close to what students will face after exam in their first employments. Yet there is a major problem with this. Assignments are still not sharp and students know the worst outcome would be to not pass. This paper describes a project assignment connected to an international competition and on a complexity level that needs competences from several different university programs. The project is a competition, which is a successful way to increase focus, commitment and reaching a higher level of result. In this project students have to form their own project organization, plan and distribute work. This is very close to how they are going to act in their future profession and how they have to interact with other professions in the real life situation. Interaction with other programs sometimes occurs but in this project the interaction is on a much higher level because of the complexity and the intensity that is the effect of a competition. Being a part of a bigger project organization gives experiences in collaborating as handling personal problems and people acting unexpected with other competences. Successful competitions results create attention good for students, teachers and the university.

At the department of Human Work Sciences at Luleå University of Technology, LTU, there is a long tradition of working in student driven product development projects in cooperation with companies in the industry. The main structure of these projects is to develop assignments together with the companies and let the students address these problems during the projects. This leads to stimulating and real tasks where the students are very committed. However, the tasks are relatively well defined and are more like consultant assignments where the students act like the consultants and work directly with the companies’ problems. The ambition was to increase the element of innovation and entrepreneurship and through that increase the ambition and conditions for starting new companies. To achieve this, need finding methodology based on Patnaik and Becker was introduced in order to give the students a tool to work with more loosely defined tasks. The projects where not defined more than as a few different scenarios where the students were requested to identify needs and from that develop a product or service to satisfy these needs. From the need finding, the use of scenarios and personas the outcome was a number of unique and innovative solutions. The students experienced the new approach as scary at first but gradually started to appreciate it as long as the project proceeded. The course assessment showed that the new way of addressing problems when developing products filled a gap in the methodology package for the students. However, even though the outcome showed a successful result regarding innovativeness the projects ended without being implemented as products on the market. This step seemed to be too much to overcome. According to that an additional aspect was introduced the third time the course was given. From the start the projects were carried out without cooperation with the industry in any way but this time a company committing them selves to buy and produce the best solution was involved. The company introduced in the course provides gifts and profile products to other companies and organizations. This means they have a great number of different products in their collection. The student project groups task was to find and create a new suitable product to offer them. The class of students was divided into groups of four and they all worked with the same assignment in competition with each other. The outcome of this project was a great number of different solutions depending on which target group the students had chosen to focus on and which needs were identified. The result from, the need finding were, in the cases when it was an advantage, prototyped in the rapid prototyping equipment which is a way to make models of high quality close to production ready designs. In the end, several solutions were chosen for production by the company. All in all, this approach turned out to greatly stimulate an entrepreneurial approach and further develop the students’ ability for innovative thinking. The use of need finding-based projects in a strong competitive situation is useful for the students. To focus more towards entrepreneurship and innovation proved to stimulate start-up of new companies and it can also show the students that a self-employed future is realistic.

Cooperating with industry to create "real life" projects for students is a 30 year old tradition at the Department of Human Work Sciences at Luleå University of Technology (LTU). This paper describes the approach to university-industry projects at LTU, illustrates benefits and problems in the interaction between students, industry and the university. The students´ practice their abilities in product design and project management. This is also a confirmation of the demand for their education in the industry. By being able to practice their future profession strengthens the student's confidence and gives them a feeling of being competent. During the project the students are given good opportunities to start building their professional network. The projects also act as key features in their CVs and portfolios. These projects serve as a display window for the MSc program Industrial Design Engineering at the Department of Human Work Sciences when recruiting new students as well as for marketing the design engineers to the industry. When employed in the industry, design engineers from LTU often hold key positions where they are excellent contacts for establishing new collaboration. Often these former students contact the university with proposals for cooperation. During the years, many student projects have developed into collaborative research projects. In this way we have created a self generating mechanism where new collaboration is created with former students who themselves have worked in these kinds of projects during their own education. A win-win-win situation is created where university, industry and students all benefit from this.