Preparing Engineers for ServiceABC University has a strong service mentality. As the result of the university’s “Serve Day” atthe STATE School for the Blind, faculty members developed a passion to connect engineeringstudents with service opportunities that require a technical solution. In the spring of 2010, theengineering department initiated a course sequence required for all engineering students. Weaffiliated with the EPICS program and utilized much of their course material for documentingthe design process.Students’ initial excitement for the course waned as they began to feel burdened by the largedocumentation requirements; the instructors agreed with their assessment. In this service-learning context, the intention was emphasize service, however academic demands dominated.Because of our hands-on design-and-build curriculum, we felt that our students could performeffectively as engineers without additional “academic” material overhead. Thus, we curtailedmuch of the documentation requirements.When the requirements eased, student passion returned; yet, we soon discovered that with thisexcitement came reduced project performance. Though we taught the design process andengaged students with multiple projects throughout the curriculum, students had not effectivelylearned how to develop project requirements and specifications. We revamped our approach andimplemented a detailed design-cycle template with a weekly assessment form using GoogleApps. As engineers, our students were not enthusiastic about the added documentationrequirements, but they recognize that these processes will enable them to achieve their goal ofproviding service to others.In this paper we detail the development of our course, recounting the various changes in ourapproach. We will discuss how the open-ended nature of service-learning courses provides acontext where students can effectively learn the design process. We suggest that this learning isa prerequisite for effective engineering service. We have discovered that if we want to serve, ...