Our Complex Systems Toolkit teaching resource “Teaching complex systems in advanced manufacturing” provides a systems approach to digital manufacturing, looking at designing and evaluating additively manufactured heat sinks.
This activity introduces students to complex systems thinking by having them design, fabricate, and experimentally evaluate additively manufactured heat sinks. It can form part of an advanced manufacturing module, in which learners apply systems engineering principles to understand the interdependencies among design, manufacturing, and performance. The activity demonstrates how complex systems principles—such as feedback, emergence, and uncertainty—manifest in physical engineering systems. Students are guided to see the design–test–evaluate cycle as an iterative, data-driven process that links digital design environments with real-world performance outcomes.
It also addresses several of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): Analytical Tools and Techniques (critical to the ability to model and solve problems), and Integrated / Systems Approach(essential to the solution of broadly-defined problems).
We’ve provided this and other practical Teaching resources, Knowledge articles and Guidance articles for you to use and adapt, and to make it simple for you to embed complex systems concepts into your teaching.
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