International Conference on Engineering Education October 16–21, 2004, Gainesville, Florida. 1 A Student Driven Multidisciplinary Knowledge Integration Teaching Program Authors: Nathaly Moreno, Universidad Simón Bolívar, AP 89000, Caracas 1080A, Venezuela, nmoreno@usb.ve Pedro Pieretti, Universidad Simón Bolívar, AP 89000, Caracas 1080A, Venezuela, ppieret@usb.ve Victor Guzmán, Universidad Simón Bolívar, AP 89000, Caracas 1080A, Venezuela, vguzman@usb.ve Sergio Díaz, Universidad Simón Bolívar, AP 89000, Caracas 1080A, Venezuela, sdiaz@usb.ve Abstract  Traditional engineering curricula always face the challenge of finding a way for the students to integrate, by themselves, the knowledge they learn as completely separate compartments in every class, let alone the integration of the different disciplines of engineering. This work presents an experience that, for the first time in Venezuela, faces this challenge by translating the full responsibility to manage and complete a multidisciplinary engineering project to a group of students. Based on the international Formula SAE competition, a multidisciplinary group of engineering students is organized as a small company and given the responsibility to manage an engineering project from beginning to end. The students must conceive, design, build, test, develop and put into competence a race car in one year of work. In the technical aspects, they must develop a high-tech vehicle integrating many areas of engineering. This forces the student into a very demanding work-like environment and brings the need for the integration of knowledge and the most needed multidisciplinary interaction. Yet, the success of this program lies on the fact that the whole responsibility of its success is translated onto the same students that are learning from it. Besides the technical aspects, the group of students must secure funds by contacting sponsors and negotiating with them. They must also manage economic, human and technical resources available so as to assure the completion of the project by the deadline of the competition. A multidisciplinary team of professors oversees the work of the group and provides some guidance. Along its three years of work, the program has evolved, by students’ initiative, into elective courses and has produced and financed eight thesis works in three different majors. Overall, the program shows how translating the responsibility onto the students and providing a good motivation (in this case a race car) can provide an excellent tool for assuring knowledge integration, team work, management experience, and self-confident students, plus a way to obtain funds for investment into quality teaching. Index Terms  knowledge integration, engineering curricula, multidisciplinary, Formula SAE, small company format.. INTRODUCTION One of the greatest challenges of today’s engineering education is to provide the student with the tools and skills required to face an ever changing and more demanding work environment. Engineering curricula has diversified to include more and more topics related to new technology, leading to specialized courses that, due to time and resources constraints, end up as unconnected knowledge compartments. This, as Smith [1] points out when referring to automotive engineers, results in young professionals who do not have a good dominion of the whole. The integration of the knowledge is left for the student to do by himself at the workplace. Furthermore, Smith [1] states that young engineers lack the general viewpoint when designing, have seldom built something with their own hands, lack teamwork and communication skills, and are unable to manage their time. Along the same lines, Short [2], studying American universities, states that objectives and contents in most engineering curricula are defined according to the research and knowledge generation of each university, without much relation to their changing environment and thus departing from actual requirements of the working force. Engineering schools must, therefore, enforce an effective relation of the students with engineering practice while at the school, providing skills and tools that will make them more competitive in the job market. At Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB), Venezuela, the curricula and the whole educational process of Mechanical, Electrical, Materials, and Chemical Engineering were evaluated with the SECAI (Engineering Majors Quality Evaluation System) methodology by the Columbus Program, a cooperative program between the European Community and several Latin- American countries. This study [3] showed good rankings for the engineering teaching at USB. Yet, it evidenced the problems already described and added an unbalance between theoretical class work and practical hands-on work. Also in this study, and based on the employers’ feedback, a need to improve teamwork and management skills was highlighted.