The development of competencies is vital in academic training, especially in engineering, where technical, collaborative, and multidisciplinary skills are essential. However, assessing these competencies in team projects poses challenges, primarily in distinguishing individual contributions, leading to potentially subjective evaluations. Differences in students' skill levels further complicate this process. Despite these difficulties, collaborative work is crucial for building the professional and multicultural skills needed in today's global job market. This research introduces an innovative evaluation strategy to better assess individual contributions within teams. The methodology includes a two-phase individual questionnaire. In the first phase, students outline a solution to a problem in defined steps to ensure comprehensive involvement and understanding. They then correct an intentionally misformulated question, demonstrating their ability to identify and justify corrections. The second phase involves exercises to assess students' grasp of key theoretical concepts applied during their projects. Results showed a more balanced grade distribution and diverse competency development compared to previous semesters. This indicated that not all students develop competencies uniformly, emphasizing the need for tailored teaching and assessment. This study also opens paths for future research on promoting women's participation in STEM, with a focus on equitable development strategies in team settings. (Abstract)

A Virtual Reality (VR) ambiance can simulate real-world scenarios and problems, allowing students to apply their theoretical knowledge to practical situations. The design of the VR ambiance should align with the learning objectives and provide relevant challenges and tasks that require students to use their computer technology skills to solve problems. A well-designed VR ambiance can encourage exploration and creativity in computer technology students. By providing a virtual space that allows experimentation and innovation, students can explore different approaches, test ideas, and think creatively when solving problems. This paper studies how students and professors evaluated the development of competencies during an extracurricular project for the development of a virtual interactive environment for learning a process. Designing an interactive virtual environment will require the implementation of various interactive elements, such as 3D objects, user interfaces, and animations. Students can apply their programming skills to create the necessary functionality in the virtual environment. To create an attractive and easy-to-use virtual environment, students will need to consider UX design principles. In this case, the competencies to be measured were: Solving problems generating efficient computational algorithms under models and tools of computer science and developing software applying process and quality standards of Software Engineering. To assess compliance with the development of competencies, it was decided to develop an interactive virtual environment; this is a process that involves several stages, from conceptualization to implementation and testing. The objectives of the virtual environment were established. In this case, it was decided to develop an environment that would help the user learn how to change a flat tire. A plan was created detailing how users will interact with the virtual environment. Early results show that more than 50% of the students outstandingly developed problem-solving competence, additionally, if we add the students who obtained a solid evaluation, the percentage of students who developed the competence in a more than acceptable way would go up to 93%. These results, also show that more than 70% of the students outstandingly developed software development competence. In addition, if we add the students who obtained a solid evaluation, the percentage of students who developed competence in a more than acceptable way would rise to 92%.

This paper presents the results of students and professors perceptions on the use of Artificial Intelligence Tools in their Courses and how universities should include them in the design of new courses. The paper also explores what students think about the future of University Education given the apparition of tools such as ChatGPT. A survey was answered by a group of 100 students enrolled in the Civil Engineering Program of our university. The courses of the students were from the Structural Engineering discipline, in which strong analytical skills are required. The results graphs show the perception of students to the use of AI Tools in this type of courses and how they see the future of teaching, from the students’ point of view.

To evaluate the risk of a working posture is to analyze the risk of injuries that such postures could cause to a worker by performing an activity in such posture for a period of time. There are many methods to evaluate this: OWAS, VIRA, REBA or MAC. The time to evaluate the risk in a posture can be of such magnitude that an analyst could take as long as days to present the solution to one posture, not counting the time to implement that solution. In this paper we analyze how the use of Augmented Reality can make the whole process from the analysis of the risk to the implementation of a solution in a more efficient way by reducing the time of the analysis to minutes without sacrificing the accuracy of such analysis. Results prove that this accuracy does not reduces when implementing an augmented reality app to make the analysis by using a camera to view an analyze the working posture

The main objective of this paper is to present the best practices, according to the perception of students, applied during the lock down terms as well as introducing a model that can be applied after the pandemic when students return to campuses gradually, especially in countries like ours where still not all students are on campus as of fall of 2021. In some countries the vaccination efforts are slow and universities will continue to rely on online teaching if not for all, for some courses. This model adapts for either full face to face classes or fully online or hybrid classes. Results show that there are important lessons or things that the lock-down left to universities and educators, and as students confirm their will to continue to have some of their courses in the online format, universities should consider not closing the option of online teaching. The model presented in this paper also takes into account students’ comments and recommendations about the future implementations of online courses and what they would like to see in them, even if they are going to be on campus.

In this paper we present a methodology based in simple constructions for the solution of scaled real problem situations. This methodology was used during the pandemic terms in our university in the years 2020 and 2021. The first objective of this work is vocational orientation of future Mechanical, Industrial and Innovation Engineers. The second objective was to develop competences in students of the fifth and sixth semesters of a high school level. In order to achieve these objectives a process that includes challenges and problem situations was established. These challenges and problem situations cover vocational orientation and some pre-defined competences. A total of 300 students participated in these activities during one year and half, during lock down conditions and over 100 students in the new normality conditions on campus. Results show that the objectives were fulfilled and the activities contributed in the attraction of more students into Engineering programs.

The number of women in Science, Technology and Engineering programs has been of interests in the last decades. In any country, the topic can include many factors such as low working opportunities, peer pressure and the opportunity to access a high-quality education. In recent years, efforts have been made worldwide to improve the number of women in higher education and particularly, in engineering programs. In this paper we analyze the situation in the Southern Region of Mexico, which according to official data from the Mexican Government, shows the lowest indicators for women participation in higher education. The paper presents a dynamic model construction and simulation that helps understand what is needed to assure a more and equal participation of women in engineering programs of two different campuses of the same university in this region of the country.

In this paper, a hybrid model for teaching Engineering Mechanics courses is presented. The model was applied during the year 2020 in which all the courses in our university had to move to an online format. Some recommendations are given for future implementations of hybrid models that work both, for on campus teaching and for online teaching in the new normality The results show that overall, the implementation of the model was successful and some indicators like student satisfaction and the students' performance are high.

The use of laboratories on Campus during the current year 2020 has been difficult due to the global covidl9 pandemic. Using the experience of some challenges developed in past years during a week called the “i-week” in our institution we developed a methodology to apply the same challenges but with remote access to a manufacturing cell made of educational robot kits. The operation of these robots through the internet has allowed students to continue their programs without having to be at the university campus. The results show that remote labs with educational robots can be a good alternative when the pandemic conditions do not allow for on-campus activities.

In this paper, a model for teaching Structural Mechanics courses is presented. The model incorporates the use of a new teaching space as well as flipped-learning and collaborative activities including video production by the students. The results show that overall, the results show that the model improves students’ satisfaction and more importantly, it has a positive effect on students’ passing rate.

The number of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine (STEMM) programs has been of interest in the last decades. For developing countries the topic can include other factors such as cultural ones and the role of women in society. In recent years, efforts have been made worldwide to improve the number of women in higher education and particularly, in STEM programs.In this paper we analyze the situation in the Southern Region of Mexico, which according to official data from the Mexican Government, shows the lowest ranking in the human development index (HDI) and the lowest indicators for women participation in higher education [1]. This work analyzes the results for a survey applied to a group of women who are current students or alumni of our university regarding how their experience was in the admission process and once they were already students of our School of Engineering. The admission process is presented in detail and after the analysis of the survey, some suggestions are given for what has worked for our university when attracting more women into Engineering programs.

Assuring and measuring how a competence is developed in an academic ambience is not an easy task. This work presents an analysis of how a group of people acknowledges and evaluates how a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach around a specific problematic situation helps to develop a group of competences. The measuring of a competence has two actors: the first is the designer of the activity to develop such competence and the second is the performer of the activity. This work focuses on the second actor. In such case, the problematic situation was the design of a 3D interactive virtual environment to help people learn a simple task such as changing a flat tire. This work presents a qualitative analysis of how a sample of 37 students acknowledge the development of four competences according to four levels. These levels vary from basic to high achiever. The results indicate that the students acknowledge a high level of developing such competences, which proves that these type of activities are an important approach to help not only students but people in general to assure that they have achieved a certain level of a competence.

In this paper, a teaching model that makes use of a YouTube video repository for Engineering courses is presented. Some results show the preference of students of such a model over traditional teaching models that use live video. The proposed offline model with a video repository is presented as a better alternative for Engineering courses, improving aspects as students satisfaction and above all, the performance of students in Structural Mechanics courses where the model was implemented.