Introduction of a Smartphone Application in an Aeroengine Technology Course

The main goal of an engineering course is for the students to achieve the defined educational goals, enhance their problem-solving capabilities and develop the essential engineering mindset. The continuous improvement of a course is essential to maintain its challenging nature while improving the course quality. Adapting the teaching methods used to new types of students can provide a significant improvement in student learning. In that context, a digital tool is employed in an advanced course in Aeroengine Technology. A smartphone application that calculates gas turbine performance is introduced in the course to help students understand some of the key concepts. The purpose of the application is to provide the students with an interactive tool to understand the gas turbine thermodynamic cycle. An exercise regarding this application is assigned to note the performance of different engine technologies used in aircraft propulsion through the years. The assignment with the application is combined with a larger assignment on gas turbine performance. The application is also employed in the final exams of the course. The purpose of this paper is to present the use of the application in the course and to address any challenges that arise in the implementation of the app in the learning process. The employed teaching methods received positive feedback from the students who indicated that the app assignment helped them understand some of the key concepts in the course. After all, the main aim of the use of novel teaching methods should be to make learning more interesting, so that students get more involved in a course.