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Session 2464

The Development of a Combined Materials/Manufacturing Processes Course at Texas A&M University

Richard B. Griffin, Terry S. Creasy Mechanical Engineering Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-3123

Abstract

Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University is reducing the required number of undergraduate degree credit hours from 138 to 130 or 132 credit hours. Two long-standing courses, Properties of Materials (4 credit hours) and Manufacturing Processes (3 credit hours), will become one new junior level course (4 credit hours). Both of the predecessor courses had laboratory components as will the new course. This paper describes the process used to develop the course. An outline of the topics covered and the laboratory activities are included in the paper. One thrust of the laboratory portion of the course will allow students to make choices and to plan their laboratory activity rather than following a cookbook recipe for the activity. The paper provides and discusses several examples of this.

Introduction

In an effort to reduce the number of credit hours in mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, two long-standing courses are to be combined into one new course. The original courses were “Properties of Materials” (4 credits) and “Manufacturing Processes” (3 credits). Both courses had laboratory activities associated with them. The new course is entitled “Materials and Manufacturing in Design,” and will be 4-credits including laboratory activities. The faculty thought it possible to combine these courses into one semester and still provide the students a useful background in the properties of materials and in manufacturing processes within a design context. This is possible because of the skills of the undergraduates who spend their first two years within the Foundation Coalition curriculum.1

Process

The College of Engineering at A&M has undergone an extensive restructuring of the freshmen and sophomore years during the past 6 years.1, 2, 3 These changes have improved the skill base of the juniors. The most recent NSF program at Texas A&M University, Foundation Coalition, provided a substantial change in the way faculty teach. Instead of lecturing at students for a class period, the faculty use collaborative learning. The classrooms are places where the students are “Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright

 2001, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Creasy, T., & Griffin, R. (2001, June), The Development Of A Combined Materials/Manufacturing Processes Course At Texas A&M University Paper presented at 2001 Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 10.18260/1-2--9116