Engineering education in the United Kingdom might be characterised by a conservative and
pragmatic approach. It has developed from the approaches developed during the age of
enlightenment and industrial revolution and has since been subject to a number of reviews and
evolutionary changes. Engineering degrees in some cases have been taught by a combination
of distinctly identifiable modules, which, despite good intentions and encouragement by
accreditation bodies, are rarely explicitly interlinked or interrelated.
The use of a virtual learning environment to support a problem based learning approach to
facilitate the acquisition of a wide range of interdisciplinary skills is explored within this
paper. Students are asked to design a transmission system for a compressor by an OEM
(original equipment manufacturer). The activity requires marketing, business planning,
project management, specification, conceptual design, detailed design, preparation for
manufacture, team-work and liaison with a number of individuals and organisations. The
mechanism of running the project is described here along with the methods employed for
persuading sceptical colleagues to embrace newer ways of providing education.