Connecting CS1 with Student’s Careers Through Multidisciplinary Projects. Case of Study: Material Selection Following the Ashby Methodology Bruno Paucar, Giovanny Chunga, Natalia Lopez, Clotario Tapia, and Miguel Realpe (&) ESPOL Polytechnic University, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, Guayaquil, Ecuador {bpaucar,gchunga,nplopez,vtapia,mrealpe}@espol.edu.ec Abstract. This paper describes the implementation of an open-source software developed using Python, which facilitates the materials selection process com- monly used in engineering. This software has been developed by non-CS stu- dents (Materials Engineering, Food Engineering and Chemistry Engineering), as a project course of their 1st-year cross-curricular course of CS1 (“Programming Fundamentals”), in order to connect their CS1 learning process with core sub- jects related to their careers, aiming to motivate both, the use of computer programming in their personal development and also, their interest in their professional career. The program developed allows choosing between different types of materials, based on specific characteristics required by the user; fur- thermore, this program enables the visualization of the Michael Ashby methodology for materials selection, which allows non-CS students to solve a problem related to their career, while it gives upper-level students a new tool to learn in class. The dataset used covers approximately 10000 distinct materials, classified by its features as ceramics, metals, polymers, wood/natural materials, pure elements and other advanced engineering materials. As a part of the out- come of this project, a public access repository has been created containing the implemented algorithms and the dataset used. The code developed can be modified and reused under license “GNU General Public License”. Finally, a report on the perception of non-CS students taking CS1 and the perception of upper-level students taking “Material selection” subject is described and analyzed. Keywords: CS1 Á Ashby methodology Á Materials selection Á Computer science education Á Project Based Learning Á PjBL Á Self-ef ficacy 1 Introduction The world is constantly changing and so is the higher education. Over the years the teaching and learning processes have undergone several breakthroughs to satisfy the society and industry needs, by enabling engineering graduates to recognize and solve both social and technical challenges. Low et al. [1] af firms that, nowadays, not only © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 H. Florez et al. (Eds.): ICAI 2019, CCIS 1051, pp. 313–326, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32475-9_23