Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Cory J. Prust; Stephen M. Williams

the then Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in themid-1980’s. At that time, ABET began to specify a “culminating design experience” for allaccredited engineering curricula.For many schools, the shift of accreditation criteria to assessment and evaluation processes hasimpacted senior design courses. Student outcomes are often assessed in the senior designcourse(s). Integration of student outcome assessment in design course(s) has met with varyingdegrees of success.Senior design has presented an opportunity to increase interaction with external constituents thathave an interest in projects and in hiring graduates. While these interactions often strengthenoverall student experience, in some cases they present unanticipated

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Naima Kaabouch; Deborah L. Worley; Jeremiah Neubert; Mohammad Khavanin

decision. This paper describes an approach to improve engineeringstudent persistence when learning calculus without having to make any changes in the currentcalculus curriculum. The method combines the integration of stand-alone engineering modules tobe solved by students outside class time and the use of engineering mentors to help thesestudents learn calculus and see the relationship between math and engineering. A survey wasdesigned to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach. An analysis of student responses to thissurvey indicates that students who participated found the engineering problems helpful inlearning and reinforcing calculus concepts, However, they remained only “somewhatcomfortable” in their ability to use calculus to solve

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bakr M. Aly Ahmed; Mike Christenson; David A. Crutchfield

number of pedagogical exercises within NDSU’s 382architecture curriculum. Inspired by U. C. Berkeley’s Vital Signs Project, one such exercise isnow integrated into the required Environmental Control Systems (Passive Principles) course.This exercise enables students to expand their education beyond the textbook and classroomthrough the scientific and experiential analysis of existing buildings and spaces.The coursework begins with readings, lectures, and exercises explaining various contributingenvironmental factors to human comfort, including temperature, humidity, and airflow. Theinterrelation of these factors is explained in terms of their implications to architectural design andtechnologies. A

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Majura F. Selekwa

and limitationsin the available instruction time. The mechanical engineering program at North Dakota StateUniversity offers mechatronics education in one semester as a three-credit undergraduate course.Due to the spectrum of its contents, the allocated three credit time is inadequate for this course,as such it was necessary to carefully develop the teaching materials so that it effectively meets itseducational objectives, yet without overloading the students. This paper discusses experiencesgained in preparing and teaching this course over a time span of three years.1 IntroductionIt is a well known fact that most of modern products are an integration of mechanical sys-tems, electronic systems, control systems, and computer systems; they are

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kevin Craig

, as it involves a cultural change from the silo approach to a holistic approach. TheABET-required senior capstone multidisciplinary design course too often becomes a design-build-test exercise with the emphasis on just getting something done. Students rarely break outof their disciplinary comfort zone and thus fail to experience true multidisciplinary-system,model-based design. What is needed are multidisciplinary systems courses, with a balancebetween theory and hardware, between academic rigor and the best practices of industry,presented in an integrated way in the 2nd and 3rd years that prepares students for truemultidisciplinary-system, model-based engineering at the senior level and beyond.Do technological universities and industry have

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Majura F. Selekwa

Mechanical Engineering Curriculum, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine (2001) 35–38. [9] J. B. Hargrove, Curriculum, equipment and student project outcomes for mechatronics education in the core mechanical engineering program at Kettering University, Mechatronics 12 (2002) 343–356.[10] A. B.Wright, Planting the seeds for Mechatronic curriculum at UALR, Mechatronics 12 (2002) 271– 280.[11] S. Meek, S. Field, S. Devasia, Mechatronics Education in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah, Mechatronics 13 (2003) 1–11.[12] T. R. Hsu, Development of an Undergraduate Currculum in Mechatronics Systems Engineering, Journal of Engineering Education (1999) 173–179.[13] N. Salzman, P. H. Meckl, Microcontrollers

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Aurenice M. Oliveira

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0017 EFFECTIVELY TEACHING MAJORS AND NON-MAJORS IN HANDS-ON ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY COURSES Aurenice M. Oliveira, Michigan Technological University, oliveira@mtu.eduAbstractModern technologies are remarkably interdisciplinary and often require knowledge of severalfields. In particular, the accelerated technology development in electrical engineering with mostof the industrial systems integrated with electronic solutions results in an increasing correlationamong different disciplines. The goal of higher education institutions is to prepare highly-qualified graduates who will contribute

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Francis Peloubet; Eakalak Khan; G. Padmanabhan

. 168Usage of CAD drawings, word-processors and PowerPoint software were required for preparingreports and presentations2.1996-2002 In this period, two more goals were added to the already developed goals of the course sinceits inception:1. To provide students with an opportunity to interact with the community and seek their feedback; and2. To provide an opportunity to develop life-long learning habits and skills to relate seemingly unrelated ideas and integrate them in the overall design. The Civil Engineering Department started using community-based projects in the capstonecourse to emphasize the importance of community integration in the civil engineering profession.Real-life projects for the course are carefully selected from the

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Andy S. Peng; Robert Nelson; Cheng Liu; Ahmet Turkmen; Wei Shi; Jia-Ling Lin

semester. This study reports thesurvey data collected from the class and discusses how the data help design and develop thecourse. It makes recommendations to improve future courses when applying a similar hybridinstructional model.IntroductionEngineering education plays an essential role in preparing students to innovate advancedtechnologies in the future. New course design and development are part of the strategic plan tohelp students advance their learning goal while in school. In order to effectively deliver coursecontent covering a broad range of topics and facilitate interactive learning activities, engineeringcourses have been traditionally delivered in classroom settings until recent years when Internettechnologies have become an integral

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bakr M. Aly Ahmed; Khaled Nassar; Mike Christenson

information, requiring a degree of clarity between the senderand the receiver, and based on knowledge that is acquired through the curriculum of core andsupport courses as shown in Figure 3. 393Figure 3. Communication at the center of an integrated curriculum.Although written, graphical, and verbal communication skills are of paramount importance inAEC fields, dedicated communication courses in these fields are often limited to a speech orpublic speaking class, with content not connected or relevant to the core of the curriculum.AbouRizk and Sawhney point out that traditional teaching methods are not fully capable ofproviding AEC students with the necessary skills and knowledge to solve real world

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Zhiyuan Yang; Hope L. Weiss; Matthew J. Traum

research divisions.To integrate hands-on energy topics, particularly gas turbines, into STEM curricula, we proposean alternative to creating virtual laboratories with no real hardware or investing in capitally-intensive lab equipment. An archive of “Energy Engineering Laboratory Modules” (EELMs) isbeing developed by collaborating faculty and students at MSOE, accumulated, and disseminatedto facilitate spiral insertion of energy engineering concepts into college and high school coursesacross STEM curricula. EELMs are economical, hands-on, “turn-key” activities that can beincorporated into any STEM curricula to introduce energy studies. For example, a series ofbuilding energy audit exercises was recently created and described that harvests

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Steven Buchhop; Tate Carlson; Evan Edwards; Prakash Ranganathan; Reza Fazel-Rezai

LabVIEW to perform different acctions. In the case of theentrances the LabVIEW logic compares tthe current status of the entrance to open or closed values. If the entrance isdetermined to be opened when it should nnot be, then LabVIEW will take the actions of sending the homeowner a textmessage, sets the alarm on the GUI, and sounds the audible alarm in the house. If the program needs to be shut down,LabVIEW is programmed to close the comm munication with the Arduino and halt the program. 3. Text Message Alerts The text message alerts are integrated intto the system as an extra security feature for the homeow wner. Alerts are sent if

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Sousada Chidthachack; Mark A. Schulte; Forster D. Ntow; Jia-Ling Lin; Tamara J. Moore

programs: a project-based learning (PBL) and a traditionalengineering curriculum. The PBL students do not take classes; 100 percent of their learning isdone in the context of industry projects to develop graduates with integrated technical andprofessional knowledge and competencies. The traditional curriculum involves classroominstruction, homework, and assessments. Using a qualitative research approach, the current studyfocused on students that completed two years of a new PBL program in a Midwest university,and compared their learning experiences to students that are graduating from a traditionalprogram at a different university. Initial results suggest positive outcomes are more pronounced for students associated withPBL as compared with

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

J. E. Johnson; L. Stradins; S Springer; R. Asthana

contribution to NASA programs, notwithstanding theirrather limited prior preparation and technical background in ceramics.The research projects that focused on ceramic materials included: a) demonstration of bariumtitanate ceramic capacitors and piezoelectric transducers, b) ceramic-matrix composites, c)vacuum brazed advanced ceramic and composite joints, d) air-brazing of oxide ceramics, and e)tribology of carbide-reinforced aluminum. These student projects also provided insights into howresearch on ceramics can be integrated in an engineering program that is not ceramic-intensive.There were many projects completed by students who were not participating in the HoltbyEndowed Chair program, but whose research may serve as a springboard for continued

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Annamalai Pandian

%. This team project study demonstrated student’scritical thinking, product design skills, machining knowledge, layout skills, processing skills, andsimulation modeling skills. This group project not only encouraged the students to work as ateam but also encouraged their individual talents to shine. This group project gave students theconfidence to handle product from “drawing to production”. It was very satisfying to see howthese senior students are transforming themselves to competent engineers.IntroductionThe engineering students are required to take various courses in general education and technicaleducation to meet the graduation requirements. Please refer a typical manufacturing engineeringprogram curriculum flow chart in the reference

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Thomas Shepard; Michaela Andrews; Cole Harris

details of the curriculum, lab exercise and physical thread stripping apparatus are provided aswell as major lessons learned and suggestions for improvement.IntroductionFirst-year engineering curriculum can potentially cover an incredible array of topics. Inevitablyan instructor must prioritize the topics and depth of coverage as they best see fit. Thisprioritization becomes of increasing importance in classes which involve students from multipleengineering disciplines as well as classes which are shorter than the more common four creditintroduction to engineering class. At the University of St. Thomas introduction to engineering isa 1 credit course which has both electrical and mechanical engineering students and is comprisedof a 100 minute

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Charles McIntyre

work15 in an environment that mimics the actual construction management process. ¾ To integrate within the revised course the following topics: Construction Terminology and Accreditation, Ethical Dilemmas, Resume and Career Plan, Engineering and Tech Expo (visit and summary paper), Professional & Trade Organizations, and Guest Speakers.MethodologyThe basic methodology for the development and delivery of the revised CM&E 111 is presentedbelow. ¾ The author attended the ACCE2 Mid-Year Meeting held in Phoenix (February 2012) to discuss first-year construction management courses with construction management program directors at the Baccalaureate Program Chairs Meeting. Approximately forty- five (45) ACCE