MERGE Lab Design courses are a living laboratory and testing venue for validating and benchmarking new software, instructional hardware, and pedagogical innovations. Multiple identical sections run in parallel each semester taught by the same instructor and with the same curriculum. This arrangement allows interventions to be introduced into one section while parallel sections serve as controls. We provide facile differential measurement of student outcomes induced by the experimental intervention with other influencing variables strictly controlled.

For example, we are the first Capstone design program in the country to use SolidWorks Product Data Management (PDM) to control design project workflow. We recently published a paper showing how PDM deployment increases the instructional efficiency of Capstone courses.

We welcome proposals from software companies, educational organizations, and pedagogical researchers to use our MERGE Lab Design courses to test, benchmark, and evaluate teaching innovations in areas allied to Design.