Meccanica Magazine n. 4

meccanica magazine
70
ENG
PRO HACKIN’ project: Innovating teaching through blended
learning and product hackathon
In November 2021 the PRO HACKIN’ project (PROduct HACKathons
for INnovative product development), funded by the European
Union under the Erasmus + program, started its actvities.
PRO HACKIN’ aims at developing a methodology to enable the
introduction of product hackathon in educational initiatives aimed
at training industrial engineers, especially mechanical engineers,
both in academia and in business contexts. The project involves
universities from 4 countries: Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria.
It is coordinated by the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and it also
involves the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico
di Milano as a partner, together with the University of Zagreb and the
Technical University of Vienna.
The partners developed the first version of the methodology during
the first semester of the AY 21/22. It combines elements highlighted
by the literature on engineering design education and the experience
on the field that the consortium partners earned during the previous
educational initiatives they carried out in collaboration, such as the
development of E-Learning tools (e.g. the ELPID project https://
www.elpid.org).
During the second semester of the AY 21/22, on the other hand, the
partners of the consortium put into practice what the PRO HACKIN’
methodology prescribes. They defined an articulated program over
the duration of the entire semester, with three hackathons, each
relating to a phase of the product development cycle. At the same
time, they also defined the theme for carrying out a project activity
with the collaboration of Siemens Mobility Austria. The industrial
partner outlined the boundaries of a design challenge on which the
students participating in the initiative would have to face, in order
to develop practicable and useful solutions in various application
contexts. Specifically, the topic concerned the development of
solutions to improve the user experience inside a wagon for city
passenger transportation (a metro coach).
Each participating university selected 10 promising students and
engaged them on the design challenge. The 40 selected students
were organized into 5 teams made up of 8 members each, 2
members for each of the participating nations. Through the Project-
Based Learning pedagogical approach and the creation of design
teams, the participants had to face more challenges within the
challenge. The students, in fact, had to speak in English with their
foreign counterparts to can carry out the activities of the project
(i.e. participating in the hackathons and preparing the same with
dedicated meetings). Moreover, they also had to get to know each
other, thus trying to leverage each tem member’s best skills during
co-design activities.
The first two hackathons took place remotely, with students
collaborating with their foreign counterparts through
communication platforms and other tools for remote collaboration
in order to generate and develop ideas and solutions. In these
activities, each team was supported by an academic coach who
stimulated the groups at the beginning of the activities; assisted
them in defining tasks and deadlines; reviewed the reports at the
end of each phase, before the project reviews carried out with
Siemens Mobility Austria’s experts.
The first hackathon spanned two days, with a daily commitment
of the last 4 hours in the afternoon. In this phase, the students
began to plan the development of the solution by understanding the
boundaries of the problem at hand. They studied different scenarios
concerning different geographical areas and then decided which
cities to focus their efforts on, defining the profiles of typical
passengers. It is interesting to note that most of the working groups
wanted to focus on metro trains operating in countries distant from
their geographical context, focusing their analysis on countries
such as India and Southeast Asia.
The second hackathon was structured like the first one, in two
days. However, here students started generating ideas to meet
the needs of their typical users, managing their workflow with
methodological tools for concept mapping and to manage the
complexity of an articulated system like a metro train. The students
were asked to develop, for each group, three solution concepts to
be implemented in a carriage with predefined volumes to improve
the user experience.
As after the first hackathon, also in this case the students met
academic coaches and Siemens’ business experts for a project
review meeting. These meetings are meant to achieve a double
goal. On the one hand, they train the students for soft skills of
communication and technical contents presentation. On the other
hand, they helped students to receive feedback so that the five
teams can focus on the implementation of the company’s preferred
solutions through a virtual modeling activity, which took place
during the third hackathon.
Unlike the others, the third and last hackathon allowed the students
to interact live, because it took place in person at the Technische
Universität Wien (TU Wien). During the trip abroad, the 10 students
of Politecnico di Milano, accompanied by prof. Niccolò Becattini,