Work in Progress: An “Engineering for Everyone” Class that Incorporates Modeling, Simulation, and Biomimicry into the Engineering Design Process
- Conference
- Location
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Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2024
- Start Date
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June 23, 2024
- End Date
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July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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First-Year Programs Division (FYP)
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/48340
Paper Authors
Richard Goldberg University of North Carolina
Richard Goldberg is a Teaching Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill. He is developing a new interdisciplinary engineering minor and major at UNC. He is interested in integrating engineering with the liberal arts and an entrepreneurial mindset. He teaches a variety of classes for first year students, seniors, and everyone in between and he enjoys designing and fabricating things in the makerspace whenever he has time. His primary research interest is in rehabilitation engineering and assistive technology for people with disabilities.
Ehssan Nazockdast University of North Carolina
Ehssan Nazockdast is an Assistant Professor of Applied Physical Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill. He received his BS and MS degrees in polymer engineering from Amirkabir University (Tehran, Iran), and his PhD in Chemical Engineering from City University of New York. Ehssan’s research involves using physical modeling and simulations to study the dynamical behavior of soft and active biological materials. He is also interested in using active learning methods in the classroom.
Daphne Klotsa University of North Carolina
Daphne Klotsa (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor of Applied Physical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her BSc and Masters degrees in physics from the University of Warwick, UK, and PhD in physics from the University of Nottingham, UK. Daphne’s research is on computational soft-matter physics and engineering with a focus on active matter, an example of which is the emergent behavior of swarms of bacteria and flocks of birds. She enjoys designing and teaching engineering classes with a lot of hands-on activities and projects.
Abstract
This is a Work in Progress paper that describes our development of a first-year engineering class at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We are a comprehensive university with an engineering department. While we require our engineering students to take our introductory engineering classes, we also want to attract students from across campus to these courses, creating a culture of “engineering for everyone”. This has several advantages, as it provides students in different majors with some exposure to engineering, and the academic diversity in the classroom enhances our activities and discussions.
This paper focuses on one of our introductory engineering courses, APPL 101 Exploring Engineering, which exposes students to several aspects of the design process that are often overlooked in first year design experiences. With a series of mini-design activities, students develop mathematical models and simulations, and use their predictions to inform their system design. Then, they use biomimicry to brainstorm design ideas and a sustainability analysis to study the impact of their design on the sustainability issues. Through these activities, students learn programming skills in MATLAB, interpret the results of those simulations, and make connections with other fields, such as environmental sciences and biology. These activities appeal to students in many different majors.
This class has been taught for four years although the first two years were impacted by COVID. As a result, this class is just starting to reach steady-state in terms of its content. Future assessment will consider the achievement of our student learning outcomes. In addition, for students who plan on an engineering major or minor, we will look at the impact of this class on retention in the program. For students who are outside of the engineering program, we will explore how this class has affected their acquisition of engineering skills and an appreciation for the importance of engineering.
Goldberg, R., & Nazockdast, E., & Klotsa , D. (2024, June), Work in Progress: An “Engineering for Everyone” Class that Incorporates Modeling, Simulation, and Biomimicry into the Engineering Design Process Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48340
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