An innovative multi-disciplinary programme to foster maritime engineering students' complex problem solving skills through practical activities at sea

Maritime engineering graduates require a wide range of skills and knowledge in order to design and construct modem marine vehicles and structures. In any design activity, there are a number of often-conflicting requirements that need addressing before a successful solution can be achieved. But problems are increasingly complex and do not have neat solutions, so aiding the development of students' complex problem solving skills is a crucial part of an engineering degree course. To address this requirement a programme of teaching and learning voyages for Bachelor of Engineering (BE) maritime engineering students on the Australian Maritime College's (AMC) 35m vessel Bluefin was created in 2005. These voyages provide a powerful learning experience for students by providing the environment to solve a large range of practical problems, which all link closely with their theoretical classroom learning. This paper outlines the purposes of the training voyages; describes the activities undertaken; explains the design of the programme with respect to generic graduate attributes and provides sample feedback on the programme from students and institutions.