MEE at the International CDIO Conference 2023

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It is a great time of year to be planning conference submissions, but if you need more motivation, in June 2023, Krys Bangert and Joanna Bates attended and presented at the 19th International Conceiving, Designing, Implementing & Operating (CDIO) conference hosted by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. 

In this blog post, Krys Bangert reflects on his experience at the conference.

Krys’s experience

The CDIO Initiative organises the annual International CDIO Conference in June which is the largest meeting of the year. The conference includes presentation of papers and other special seminars, workshops, events and activities. All aspects of the conference are associated with providing a framework for engineering education that stresses engineering fundamentals set in the context of real-world systems and products. This methodology has a lot of similarities to the University of Sheffield’s approach to engineering tuition (and MEE in particular), because of this it was selected by the MEE’s Research Support Group (RSG) as an excellent event to attend to share and learn about best teaching practices.


As part of the conference, I presented some research I had been working on with Edward Browncross, Matteo Di Benedetti, Harry Day and Andrew Garrard on the theme of “Comparing XR and digital flipped methods to meet learning objectives”. This study builds upon existing work carried out in the field of virtual labs, that indicates these experiences can help reinforce student learning outcomes. Essentially our study was a comparison of student learning performance in response to exposure to three different types of simulation that we made in house: 

  • Web Browser-Based “low fidelity” Simulation, 

  • Stanford University Platform iLabs 2D Simulation and 

  • Low Fidelity - Unity iVR (immersive Virtual Reality). 



As part of the conference program I presented a “60 second elevator pitch” in the main auditorium to the entire conference following the keynote speaker. This was rather daunting but mine seemed to go down well with the delegates!


Afterwards was the poster exhibition. I’d been working with the conference organisers to arrange a demonstration of the software in the study alongside the poster itself, which incorporated a VR headset that I had brought with me. The response was amazingly positive, I had a constant crowd of delegates to talk to about aspects of the study and how to progress it moving forward to the main study in September. Some of the conversations went on so long I nearly missed the delegate lunch! But it was worthwhile as I made some very useful contacts in universities in Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands, the latter of which at TUDelft, I subsequently arranged to have an online meeting in September to scope out possible future collaborations with other teams within MEE.


In the late morning Joanna gave her presentation on “Induction Diamond Labs - Giving Everyone an Equal Starting Point”, showcasing the work she had done alongside Andrew Garrard and Edward Browncross.

Joanna gave a great talk about how we carry out induction labs and the MEE approach to mass teaching. This highlighted the efficiency gains on staff time, setup time and educational delivery versus transitional teaching models.

Aside from our presentations (!), some of the highlights relevant to MEE were:

  • A presentation regarding technical staff career progression, given by Mark Nivan Singh, Sin Moh Cheah, and Helene Leong of the CDIO Centre for Innovative Teaching & Learning at Singapore Polytechnic University
  • Calvin Rans at TUDelft University gave a talk about “The Student Flight Data Recorder – Building a Culture of Learning from Failure”, a unique approach to getting aerospace students to plan their studies and reflect on what they achieved throughout their course.
  • Serdar Asut presented on “HANDZONe: Towards a Hybrid Learning Space for Hands-on Learning Activities”, about using remote access control of physical lab equipment and also using VR models.
  • Ivanna Sandyk from Tallinn University in Estonia gave a talk about “Pneumatics Laboratory Interactive Educational Experience Development”, creating a modular virtual reality hydraulic system for teaching, allowing students to assemble components in any way they saw fit to meet learning objectives.
  • The Pop-up Roundtable on “SUPER Assessor – A Game developed for integration of sustainability in learning design” by Ole Andreas Alsos, Ingrid Berg Sivertsen, Dag Håkon Haneberg, and Åshild Wilhelmsen of NTNU, Norway. This session was a gamification of curriculum design using a board game of their own design.
  • Workshop on challenge-based learning titled “Student-driven Engineering Education: Design Your Own Living Lab Case” by Toine Andernach, Anita van Oosten, and Remon Rooij.
  • The country! We had some time for sightseeing in the town before setting off on the long journey back. We all went on the tram to a local beauty spot, visited a World War II era fort, and Harriet/Joanna went to a local island by boat (see photos below). Norway is a beautiful country.
  • The food! Particularly the conference dinner, which was hosted at the Frimurerlogen hall. Throughout our stay, we tried local produce and drinks, including reindeer stew!

If you would like to find out more about our research, please do get in touch with us:

Krys Bangert: k.bangert@sheffield.ac.uk
Joanna Bates: j.bates@sheffield.ac.uk