Innovative and Multidisciplinary Teaching to Design a Low Consumption Vehicle

The paper presents an innovative and multidisciplinary method for teaching how to design a low consumption vehicle point out at the Politecnico of Torino thanks to the application cases of the Team H2politO. The interdisciplinary Team, made by students, give an opportunity to tackle a “new teaching”, different from that of the traditional classroom lesson given by the teacher, but innovative with the students who are able to tackle complex technical problems, such as those they will face in the world of work. The challenge of the Team is design, build, assembly and test on track a real vehicle prototype with an important goal: reduce the consumption and increase the distance obtained with the equivalent of 1 L of gasoline. The final global efficiency challenge is the Shell Eco-marathon race, an International student’s competition where the vehicle with the lowest consumption wins. Every year new students managers of the different areas “grow up” training students who, year by year, change roles, realizing a non-traditional and innovative training, from student to student and learning by doing. In this way, the University is able to develop a new generation of engineers, able to solve complex technical problems but who also have managerial skills, more ready to enter the world of work.