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- THE EPS@ISEP PROGRAMME: A GLOBALISATION AND INTERNATIONALISATION EXPERIENCEPublication . Ferreira, Paulo; Malheiro, Benedita; Silva, Manuel; Guedes, Pedro; JUSTO, Jorge; Castro Ribeiro, Maria Cristina De; Duarte, Abel J.Higher Education Institutions (HEI) design and implement globalisation and internationalisation policies to promote the image, expand influence and increase both the number and quality of staff and students. This is especially important for engineering schools competing for the reduced cohort of motivated Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) applicants available yearly. Moreover, to train future engineers, engineering education needs to depart from the traditional teacher-centred paradigm. Student-centred learning is central to maintain high student motivation and to drive the development of hard (scientific and technological) and soft (inter-personal) skills. For students to develop these 21st-century engineering skills, today’s curriculums must embed student-centred pedagogical methods, address the design and implementation of solutions guided by ethics and sustainability, and expose undergraduates to multicultural multidisciplinary teamwork, under strong efficiency constraints.The European Project Semester (EPS) is a project-based, international teamwork initiative, that replaces the design capstone semester of undergraduate engineering degrees. It is offered by a network of 19 HEI located in 12 different European countries. The network develops transnational projects together and exchanges students, staff, ideas, and best practices, expanding the influence of the providers. EPS at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (EPS@ISEP) runs during the spring semester. It provides 30 European Credit Transfer System Units (ECTU), with 20 ECTU assigned to the project module and 10 ECTU equally divided by five support modules: Energy and Sustainable Development, Ethics and Deontology, Foreign Language and Culture, Marketing and Communication, and Project Management and Teamwork. The programme is offered to international and local students, but during its 12-year existence most students were international. The students are placed in teams considering psychological profiles. The multiculturalism and the diversity of skills within teams also foster a more inclusive and enriching learning experience. The sustainability and ethics objectives are requirements to be considered in the solution design and in the choice of technologies and components for the project implementation. The weekly project meetings between the teams and the coaching panel (7 teachers from 6 different departments), are not only pivotal to the project-based learning process, but promote the internal dialogue between departments and scientific areas. The reduced project budget provides a strong creative stimulus, while reinforcing the sustainability criteria, since turnkey solutions and waste are incompatible with a constrained bill of materials. Besides the positive effect of the programme on student training/education, as shown by the grades and the projects' documentation, EPS@ISEP has strongly influenced the teacher's skills and performance, as attested by the number of programme-related publications and its influence on other courses and modules offered by ISEP. EPS@ISEP is an effective low-cost programme that acts as a testbed and catalyst in the process of bringing engineering education into the 21st century, following sound ethical and sustainability criteria. EPS@ISEP contributes to the globalisation and internationalisation of ISEP as well as to the dissemination and adoption of best practices in engineering education.
- Smart Supermarket Cart - An EPS@ISEP 2023 ProjectPublication . Orós, Miquel; Robu, Marian-Daniel; van Klaveren, Hessel; Gajda, Dominika; Van Dyck, Jelte; Krings, Tobias; Duarte, Abel J.; Malheiro, Benedita; Ribeiro, Cristina; Justo, Jorge; Silva, Manuel F.; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroThe technological revolution experienced over the last two decades, together with changes in shopping behaviour, has led supermarkets to consider smart shopping trolleys. Recently, several companies have tested and implemented smart services and devices, such as smart shopping carts with scanners, automatic payment methods, or self-payment locations, to maximise supermarket profits by reducing staff and improving the customer experience. In the spring of 2023, a team of six students enrolled in the European Project Semester at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) proposed FESmarket, an innovative smart shopping cart solution. The user-centred design focused on making the shopping interaction and experience more efficient, comfortable, and satisfactory. Form (balancing aesthetics with innovation), function (selecting functionalities based on the most disruptive technologies), market (fulfilling the identified needs), sustainability (minimising the use of resources), and ethics (respecting human values) are the pillars of the project. FESmarket proposes a smart shopping trolley equipped a built-in touch screen for real-time information on products and their location, cameras for product identification, an audio assistance system, a refrigeration chamber, and a mobile app interface for the customer. Finally, a proof-of-concept prototype was assembled and tested to validate the viability of the designed solution.
- Educating global engineers with EPS@ISEP: The 'pet tracker' project experiencePublication . Borzecka, Aleksandra; Fagerstrom, Anton; Costa, Artur; Gasull, Marti Domenech; Malheiro, Benedita; Castro Ribeiro, Maria Cristina De; Silva, Manuel; Caetano, Nídia; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroThe European Project Semester (EPS) is a one-semester capstone project/internship programme offered to engineering, product design and business undergraduates by 18 European engineering schools. EPS aims to prepare future engineers to think and act globally, by adopting project-based learning and teamwork methodologies, fostering the development of complementary skills and addressing sustainability and multiculturalism. Since 2011, the EPS@ISEP programme offers a set of multidisciplinary projects to multicultural teams of students, so that each team element can bring to the project its previous knowledge and background experience. In the spring of 2013, a team choose to develop a pet tracker to provide pet owners with information regarding the whereabouts of their pets and, above all, to reduce the number of pets lost. After analysing related products, the team decided to add extra features for product differentiation. Combining a triple-axis accelerometer, a low cost GPS receiver and the GSM/GPRS communication technology, the team designed a system providing pet location, tracking, map display and activity monitoring services. This paper describes the development process of the Pet Tracker system, comprising a wearable device for pets and a website for pet owners.
- Raising Awareness to Waste Collection and Recycling in Urban Spaces – An EPS@ISEP 2023 ProjectPublication . Bohon, Nina; Durand, Olivier; Emmelot, Charlotte; Hellemans, Koen; Jasny, Lukas; Reisinger, Kathrin; Duarte, Abel J.; Malheiro, Benedita; Ribeiro, Cristina; Justo, Jorge; Silva, Manuel F.; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroThe European Project Semester (EPS) at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) is a capstone engineering design programme in which students, organised in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams, develop a solution for a proposed problem, taking into account sustainability, ethical and market concerns. This paper describes a research project aimed at raising awareness and changing behaviour in relation to waste disposal, carried out by a team of EPS@ISEP students during spring 2023. BinIt, as the project is named, targets young adults who want to live in a cleaner city. Unlike other campaigns, it simplifies and stimulates proper waste disposal and recycling, tackling the root of the problem and creating a new social norm. BinIt includes a campaign, a web app and the Garbage Gladiator bin. The app consists of a city map where users can pin and check bin locations, and an educational platform with information on waste disposal and recycling issues. Gamification is incorporated through a ranking system. The Garbage Gladiator is a physical container for urban public spaces specially designed to encourage people to dispose of their waste correctly.
- Sustainable Food Production Through Vermicomposting – An EPS@ISEP 2021 ProjectPublication . Mendes, Ana; Tatuc, Elena; Joos, Fien; Wyka, Jakub; Petrevski, Kris; Malheiro, Benedita; Ribeiro, Cristina; JUSTO, Jorge; Silva, Manuel F.; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroThe European Project Semester (EPS) is a multicultural, multidisciplinary teamwork and project-based learning framework offered to engineering, business and product design undergraduates by a network of European Higher Education institutions, including the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP). In the spring of 2021, five EPS@ISEP students from distinct countries and fields of study joined efforts to address the smart and sustainable food production issue. This paper reports their research and development of Wormify, a solution based on vermicomposting. The main goal of the project was to design, simulate, test and build a prototype following ethical and sustainable practices. Wormify aims to minimize the problem of feeding the growing global population, and to prevent food waste from going to landfills. These objectives were pursued by designing a smart modular system for urban rooftops or small balconies. Several modules can be connected to form a place for residents to meet and socialize. The smart system allows monitoring through an app/website. This paper presents the background studies, the concept and design, the development and final results.
- The MopBot Cleaning Robot – An EPS@ISEP 2020 ProjectPublication . Tuluc, Corina; Verberne, Frederique; Lasota, Szymon; Almeida, Tomás de; Malheiro, Benedita; JUSTO, Jorge; Ribeiro, Cristina; Silva, Manuel F.; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroWaste is one of the biggest problems on Earth today. In the spring of 2020, a team of students enrolled in the European Project Semester at Instituto Superior de Engenharia decided to contribute with the design of an ethically and sustainability-oriented autonomous cleaning robot named MopBot. The project started with the research on similar solutions, ethics, marketing and sustainability to define a concept and create a functional, ethical and sustainability driven design, including the complete control system. Finally, given the undergoing pandemic, the operation of the MopBot was simulated using CoppeliaSim. MopBot is a medium-sized vacuum cleaner, with two vertical brushes, intended to clean autonomously large areas inside buildings such as shopping malls or corridors. It is shipped with a sustainable packaging solution which can be re-purposed as a disposal box for electrical components.
- Smart Bicycle Probe – An EPS@ISEP 2020 ProjectPublication . Boularas, Mélissa; Szmytke, Zuzanna; Smith, Logan; Isik, Kaan; Ruusunen, Juho; Malheiro, Benedita; JUSTO, Jorge; Ribeiro, Maria Cristina de Castro; Silva, Manuel F.; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroAir pollution kills approximately 7 million people every year and nine out of ten people are exposed to high levels of airborne pollutants. This paper describes the design of a bicycle air probe by a team of multicultural and multidisciplinary students of the European Project Semester, during the spring of 2020. This learning experience started with the analysis of the state-of-the-art, ethics, marketing and sustainability dimensions, and was followed by the design, development and simulation of a proof-of-concept solution. The result is GOairLight – a bicycle probe paired with a mobile app. The probe collects air quality, humidity and temperature data as cyclists ride, while the mobile app shares the collected data with the community, by means of a cloud database, presents relevant air quality information and suggests less polluted routes. Furthermore, it relies on a sustainable energy source – a dynamo powered by the cyclist – and automatic lighting. The latter feature improves cyclist visibility and raises the awareness towards the cyclist, contributing to increased road safety.
- Insect Farming – An EPS@ISEP 2022 ProjectPublication . Copinet, Benjamin; Flügge, Finn; Margetich, Leonie Christine; Vandepitte, Marie; Petrache, Paul-Luchian; Duarte, Abel J.; Malheiro, Benedita; Ribeiro, Maria Cristina de Castro; Justo, Jorge; Silva, Manuel F.; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroIntensive cattle farming as a means of protein production contributes with the direct emission of greenhouse gases and the indirect contamination of soil and water. The public awareness towards this issue is growing in western cultures, leading to the stagnation of meat consumption and to the willingness to adopt alternative sustainable sources of protein. A solution is to farm insects as they present a reduced environmental impact and constitute a well-known source of protein. However, for westerners, eating insects implies a cultural change as they are still seen as dirty and disgusting. In 2022, a team of five EPS@ISEP students chose to design a solution for this problem followed by the assembly and test of the corresponding proof-of-concept prototype. They decided to design a home farming kit to grow mealworms driven by ethical, sustainable and the market needs. Exploring the insect life-cycle, the kit provides protein for humans and animals, chitin for soil bacteria and frass for plants. It can also be used as an educational tool for children to learn about sustainability, social responsibility and insect life-cycles, helping to overtake the cultural barrier against insect eating from a young age.
- Waste to FungiPublication . Winter, Alexander; Justo, Jorge; Silva, Manuel F.; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, Pedro; Pedro, Erendiro; Ślasko, Julia; Battaglini, Julien; Faelker, Mäike; Kivipelto, Ronald; Duarte, Abel J.; Malheiro, Benedita; Castro Ribeiro, Maria Cristina DeThis paper describes the journey of a multinational and multidisciplinary team enrolled in the European Project Semester (EPS) at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) during the spring semester of 2019. The team embraced the idea of repurposing coffee leftovers to cultivate oyster mushrooms and benefited from the background diversity of the team members as well as from newly acquired marketing, sustainability and design ethics skills to consolidate and strengthen the overall feasibility of the project. The project was set to design, develop and test grey oyster mushroom growth kits with an automated monitoring system, using coffee grounds as growing substrate and complying with the applicable regulations and pre-defined requirements. The ulterior aims of the project were to reconnect people with the food they eat and to disseminate sustainable food production processes, which are not only healthy but environmentally friendly. To achieve these goals, the team developed a circular economy business model where grey oyster mushroom growth kits reuse coffee grounds as growing beds and food buckets as containers. The designed growth kits include a controlled fruiting chamber with an integrated monitoring system. This allows easy domestic cultivation, monitoring through a smart phone. Moreover, the proposed solution contemplates information sharing on the mushroom cultivation process, monitoring system and recipes as well as the maintenance of a dedicated discussion forum. Tests have been conducted to test the concept, cultivation process, monitoring system and fruiting chamber from the incubation of mycelium all the way to the harvesting. Results show the feasibility of creating a business based on the devised concept
- Learning sustainability by developing a solar dryer for microalgae retrievalPublication . Malheiro, Benedita; Ribeiro, Maria Cristina; Silva, Manuel; Caetano, Nídia Sá; Ferreira, Paulo; Guedes, PedroThe development of nations depends on energy consumption, which is generally based on fossil fuels. This dependency produces irreversible and dramatic effects on the environment, e.g. large greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn cause global warming and climate changes, responsible for the rise of the sea level, floods, and other extreme weather events. Transportation is one of the main uses of energy, and its excessive fossil fuel dependency is driving the search for alternative and sustainable sources of energy such as microalgae, from which biodiesel, among other useful compounds, can be obtained. The process includes harvesting and drying, two energy consuming steps, which are, therefore, expensive and unsustainable. The goal of this EPS@ISEP Spring 2013 project was to develop a solar microalgae dryer for the microalgae laboratory of ISEP. A multinational team of five students from distinct fields of study was responsible for designing and building the solar microalgae dryer prototype. The prototype includes a control system to ensure that the microalgae are not destroyed during the drying process. The solar microalgae dryer works as a distiller, extracting the excess water from the microalgae suspension. This paper details the design steps, the building technologies, the ethical and sustainable concerns and compares the prototype with existing solutions. The proposed sustainable microalgae drying process is competitive as far as energy usage is concerned. Finally, the project contributed to increase the deontological ethics, social compromise skills and sustainable development awareness of the students.