The main activities implemented are: (a) “Use of demon-
strator satellites for teaching” and (b) “Conceptual design
of a satellite mission”, which have been both integrated
in the “Space Vehicles II” (VEII) course; (c)
“Development of a satellite tracking ground station”, (d)
“Development of a laboratory satellite”, and (e) “QB50
project”, which have been integrated as Final Thesis.
The “Conceptual design of a satellite system” was intro-
duced in VEII in the academic year 2009/10. In order to
improve its outcomes, in the following three years it was
reshaped taking into account the lecturers and students
feedback. The “Use of demonstrator satellites for
teaching” was introduced in the academic year 2010/11,
and was also modified in the next academic year. In the
years 2012/13 and 2013/14, the VEII course structure was
frozen and several surveys were conducted. The main
objective of these surveys was to evaluate the impact of
the PBL methodology in the students’ engineering skills,
in their acquisition of generic competences, and to deter-
mine the students’ degree of satisfaction. The principal
results are summarized in this paper.
The work is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the
main learning activities performed. A description of the
application of PBL methodology is contained in
Section 3, and its main results are presented and discussed
in Section 4. Sections 5 and 6 summarize the instructors’
perception and the overall conclusions, respectively.