Background: History of PBL at Stanford
Notes:
A brief history of Design Division PBL activities:
- Some of the strong, ongoing activities in the Design Division date to its inception (Product Design, Robotics).
- Smart Product Design is also suprisingly old - started in the late 1970s by Prof. Larry Leifer. However, it has only recently grown to become a dominant part of the design graduate and undergraduate curricula.
- The 1980s brought an emphasis in manufacturing and design for manufacturability, with sponsorship from the Stanford Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing.
- The 1990s brought a new emphasis in mechatronics and micro-electromechanical systems, as well as 3D rapid prototyping.
- Most recently, two Design Division faculty have assumed the directorship of the Stanford Learning Lab where some of the ideas and techniques for ěproject based learningî that the Design Division has pioneered are being refined and extended across the univ