Improving systems thinking skills of second year engineering students by an introductory project

In 2011, the course Introductory Project in Electrical Engineering took place for the first time at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. The course was devised to expose sophomore students to the discipline of electrical engineering and improve their systems thinking skills. The core of the course was a design project of a window cleaning robot. This task was carried out by teams of five students, with personal instruction by a mentor, a senior engineer in the Department. The present research, which used quantitative tools alongside qualitative ones, indicates significant improvement in systems thinking skills of students who took the course.