A Challenge-Based Learning Experience for Teaching Industry 5.0 in Management Engineering Education

Industry 5.0 demands that engineering graduates develop competencies that integrate technical knowledge with human-centricity, sustainability and resilience. However, engineering education has not always advanced at the same pace, and effective educational designs that operationalise these principles within applied learning contexts remain scarce. This paper presents Innovation Day, a four-hour challenge-based learning experience that operationalises Industry 5.0 principles through an artificial intelligence (AI)-supported cyber–physical logistics challenge in management engineering master’s programmemes. The activity engaged 47 students organised into 14 teams across two master’s degrees at the Universitat Politècnica de València. Students progressively developed and integrated data structuring, QR-based identification, sequencing and storage assignment logic, computer vision and collaborative robotics within a single supervised automation workflow. All 14 teams completed the first three phases, while completion rates reached 71% in Phase 4 and 64% in Phase 5, reflecting the increasing demands of system integration. Results also show that generative AI acted as a pedagogical tool, enabling students with limited programming experience to develop functional Python applications while maintaining human validation and accountability. The experience demonstrates that complex Industry 5.0 scenarios can be translated into manageable, transferable educational activities through phased challenge design, functional validation gates and structured AI-supported learning.