Collection

2007 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kris G. Mattila

required for all Civil Engineering students in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)at Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech). Typical enrollment is 60 students.Many students have had limited exposure to construction so their understanding of industryterminology may be limited. In order to bring students to some level of understanding there hasto be some terminology introduced. In addition to the Civil Engineering students taking theclass, there are usually some students from other areas such as, Environmental Engineering,Geological Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineeringand Business. Many of these non CEE students take the class because they are interested inconstruction, have worked in

Collection

2007 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

P. B. Ravikumar

consistent with the educationalrequirements.OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSEThe specific objectives are for the students to:1. Engage in creative engineering.2. Apply fundamental principles to design.3. Learn and participate in the dynamics of team effort and management.4. Critically consider design alternatives.5. Consider scientific, technological, social, ethical, economic, and environmental aspects of engineering as warranted.6. Complete the project within time and budget constraints.7. Practice oral and written communication skills.PREPARING FOR THE COURSEThe Senior Design Project course is quite different in the logistical preparation anddelivery when compared to most other courses in the mechanical engineering

Collection

2007 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Michael A. Rother

Industrially Supplied Design Projects at the University of Minnesota-Duluth Michael A. Rother Department of Chemical Engineering University of Minnesota-Duluth For the past three years, the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University ofMinnesota-Duluth has used industrially supplied projects in its senior capstone design sequence.The change was implemented from academic to industrial projects as a result of an ABETrecommendation to increase the multidisciplinary experiences of the students. By ABETdefinition, an industrially supplied project is considered

Collection

2007 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Robert A. Marlor

INCORPORATING A TRUSS DESIGN PROJECT INTO A MECHANICS & STATICS COURSE Robert A. Marlor, P.E., Ph.D. Associate Professor of Engineering Technology Northern Michigan UniversityINTRODUCTIONWhen teaching engineering design concepts in engineering technology programs, instructors arechallenged to create realistic, hands on, intuitive design experiences at an early stage in thestudents’ development. This paper describes a balsa wood truss design competition used in aStatics & Mechanics course at NMU to motivate the learning of the concepts of staticequilibrium and truss analysis.Balsa wood bridge projects have been used

Collection

2007 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Michael P. Hennessey

lastly, the technology is here today and very accessible to undergraduate engineeringstudents.Acknowledgements The author acknowledges the decision by the School of Engineering to offer this technicalelective course (with 7 students) and the engaging students in the course, most of whom areplanning on pursuing graduate degrees in engineering: Robert Ertel, Matthew Gartmann,Lindsey Hines, Ann Majewicz, Michael Moran, Lina Salah, and Michael Zimmerman.ReferencesASEE (1998). How do you measure success? Washington DC: ASEE.Close, C. M., Frederick, D. K., & Newell, J. C. (2002). Modeling and Analysis of Dynamic Systems (3rd ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.Dabney, J. B., & Harman, T. L. (2004). Mastering SIMULINK®. Upper

Collection

2007 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Michele H. Miller; Debra D. Charlesworth

Problem Solving Obstacles in the Research Lab: Perceptions of Graduate Students and Faculty Michele H. Miller and Debra D. Charlesworth Michigan Technological UniversityAbstractThe transition from dependent to independent learner is an important part of the graduate schoolexperience. The transition is overly bumpy for many students (and their faculty advisors). Thispaper describes a survey of faculty and graduate students administered at Michigan Tech.Twenty-two faculty and thirty-six graduate students from a variety of engineering and sciencedisciplines completed the surveys. The surveys asked respondents to rate the importance of avariety of factors to