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The course taught by Dolan School of Business’ Dr. Michael Cavanaugh is designed to further develop management and team-building skills that students have acquired in other management classes.
The task is to work in teams to design and build a structure made up of 4,500 KEVA Planks – a type of wooden building brick.
Every plank measures about a quarter of inch thick, three-quarters of an inch wide, by four and a half inches long. Structures can be built with KEVAs by simply stacking the planks, which can appear like a house of cards. No glue or bolts are allowed.
People of all ages, from preschoolers to architects, can use these types of blocks.
The trick is that the structure must also be able to self-destruct.
Dr. Michael Cavanaugh, associate professor of management, who developed and teaches the class said, “This course has students putting all their management courses to work. It’s about working in a hands-on problem-solving environment, and that is what doing business is all about. It’s also about students engaging as active learners.”
Students this semester faced the challenge from Cavanaugh, who suffered from an injury and was unable to participate as actively as in past semesters.
This set-back required the students to proactively use the active learning skills he taught them and for three students to emerge as leaders of the project task.
Students Joseph Black, Romario Lemy, and David Horwich filled the leadership roles, with Romario as engineer and planner, Horwich as the Cantilever expert, and Black was in charge of creating the blueprint, and coordinating and motivating participants to build the physical structure.
Course takeaways included learning from failure and how to tackle tasks when obstacles present themselves.
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