Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

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

existingbuildings as living laboratories suitable for quantitative evaluation using an inexpensive audittool kit.5 Additionally, a small, inexpensive inverted downdraft wood gasifier for processing pinechips into syngas was designed from a metal vacuum-flask-style thermos bottle. It wasconstructed for less than $50 to teach students about biomass-to-energy processes.6To create EELM hardware for gas turbine experimentation, we propose constructing the diskturbine shown in Figure 1 using freely available instructions obtained on-line from theInstructables Web site.7 This design uses platters harvested from obsolete computer hard drives, 181which are often freely available at K-12 schools and colleges that

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Majura F. Selekwa

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0033 Teaching Mechatronics Effectively in a Mechanical Engineering Program Under Limited Time Majura F. Selekwa Department of Mechanical Engineering; North Dakota State University majura.selekwa@ndsu.eduAbstractMechatronics is a well defined multidisciplinary engineering design philosophy that draws knowl-edge from mechanical engineering, electronics, computer science, and control systems. Under-graduate mechanical engineering programs in many institutions often find it difficult to com-prehensively cover all principles of mechatronics because of its wide spectrum

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Aurenice M. Oliveira

to the industry with the latest technologies in their fields.Most of the instructors, however, face the challenge of teaching both non-majors and majors,sometimes even in the same classroom. The aim of this article is to discuss the main challengesand to share teaching methods that the author has used to encourage active learning andengagement among major and non-major students in an Electrical Engineering Technologyprogram. The author addresses the use of technology for teaching, the use of lecture timeeffectively, the importance of well-designed laboratory experiments, and use of simulation tools.Assessment tools have indicated that the teaching methods used have been successful in meetingthe teaching goals.Keywords: engineering education

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Han-Way Huang; Nannan He

wereshipped. More than 95% of mobile phones, 90% of hard drive controllers, 40% digital TVs andset-top boxes, 15% microcontrollers, and 20% mobile computers are using the ARM processors.To keep up with the embedded industry change, we have updated the contents of ourmicrocontroller courses with the goal to keep up with the technology change and make ourgraduates more marketable. We have taught the ARM Cortext-M4 MCU in our secondmicrocontroller course and plan to also teach the simpler version of the ARM Cortex-M MCU inour first microcontroller course.Three major issues must be addressed in order to teach a new microcontroller. First, we need tochoose an appropriate Cortex-M4 demo board for students to perform laboratory experimentsand design

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Jerry Gao; Lianbo Zhu

technologies have beenimplemented in the CME403 course and CME670 Construction Information Technologies forConstruction Managers and were welcomed by the students.Industry Training Standards and FacilityIn order for students to develop a sense of a real professional job, it is critical to establish anindustry-standard facility but not to focus on theory. For example, when teaching a CME453concrete course, the laboratory component follows the American Standards of Testing andMaterials (ASTM) cement, aggregate and concrete standards. The major experiments conductedare the tests specified in the American Concrete Institute field and laboratory testing certificationprogram, including: Sampling Freshly Mixed Concrete, Making and Curing Concrete

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nannan He; Gale Allen; Cameron Johnson

approachSimilar to the existing automation courses, active learning and hands-on learning are also thefundamental teaching approaches applied to this real-time system design course. All of theclasses are held in the laboratory. For this course, this setting eases the flexible adoption of avariety of teaching methods, depending on the characteristics of the different course topics insequence. In Table 1, the time schedule of each top-level topic is given for this one semestercourse (16 weeks). Please note that the topic 7 - Case studies is not labeled with a specificschedule because its sub topics are provided in the combination with other topics throughout thesemester. The teaching formats and material employed in this course are presented as

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Wendy R. Stary; John R. Schultz

Monday and Tuesday mornings.This time laboratory experiments were also incorporated into those same days in the afternoons.Based on feedback from the students from the first course this arrangement left more time forstudents to engage in social activities and cultural excursions. The timing also meant betterweather in Darmstadt, opening up opportunities for more destinations to be open. Unfortunately,this combination of timing and duration also meant greater expense. While numerous studentsexpressed interest in attending the program, in the end no one completed the application process.There was still interest on the part of the faculty member teaching the course at the h_da campusto have a faculty member from the UW-Stout help teach the course

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nannan He; Han-Way Huang

andautomation domains. Third, input programming languages of these selected tools are introducedto students to help them apply the tools in the laboratory assignments and class project.IntroductionKnowledge of computing and software programming is important to all engineering andtechnology students. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that computing will be one ofthe fastest-growing U.S. job markets in STEM through 2020: about 73% of all new STEM jobswill be computing related 1. More importantly, software development training could be avaluable experience for all engineer students, as it can cultivate student’ problem solving andprocess development capability.However, software programming is often considered to be difficult for engineering

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bakr M. Aly Ahmed; Khaled Nassar; Mike Christenson

, gaming complementsrather than substitutes for more formal pedagogical approaches: integrating standard formalteaching methods and simulation games as a laboratory to test and reinforce the relevance oftheories can be a very effective teaching method. In particular, games have been shown to bemore effective if they are embedded in instructional programs that include debriefing andfeedback.12 Perhaps the most well-known communication game is the “Who are we?” game,designed around the principles of the Johari Window model developed by Dr. Joseph Luft andDr. Harry Ingham. This model identifies sharing and feedback as the keys to building opencommunication. Open communication leads to a climate of trust and access to untappedpossibilities.13In this

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Audrey LaVallie; Eakalak Khan; G. Padmanabhan

., Foertsch, J. A., & Daffinrud, S.,1998. Spend a Summer with a Scientist program: An evaluation of program outcomes and the essential elements of success. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin- Madison, LEAD Center.[8] Schamel, G & Ayres, M., 1992. The Minds-on Approach: Student Creativity and Personality Involvement in the Undergraduate Science Laboratory. Journal of College Science Teaching, 21(4), 226-229.[9] Nikolova Eddins, S. G., & Williams, D. F., 1997. Research-based Learning for Undergraduates: A Model for Merger of Research and Undergraduate Education. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 8(3):77-94.[10] Chaplin, S. B., Manske, J. M., & Cruise, J. L., 1998. Introducing Freshmen to Investigative

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2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Achintya N. Bezbaruah; Rajani G. Pillai; Hannah Hood; Holly Erickson; Eric Dobervich; Jane Laux; Jamie Varholdt; Adam Gehlhar; Michelle Weber; Harjyoti Kalita; Talal Almeelbi; Mary Pate; Michael Quamme; Mohammad Enayet Hossain; Seydou Cisse; Amanda Grosz; Navaratnam Leelaruban

, and fabrics. Itis projected that nanotechnology market will grow by 19% during 2013 to 2017[1] from its present market value of US$1.6 trillion [2]. There will a demand fornanotechnology workforce and the demand is projected to sustain over the years.Nanotechnology markets are growing in electronics, energy, healthcare, and 418construction [1]. It is felt that there is a need to introduce nanotechnology to thefuture generation of scientists and engineers while they are still in their middleschools.Project DescriptionSeven teaching modules involving various aspects of nanotechnology weredeveloped and introduced to the seventh grade students at West Fargo STEMCenter Middle School in West Fargo, ND. Pre

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Dilpreet S. Bajwa; Sreekala G. Bajwa

and hopeful that this experience willhelp them in obtaining an internship or a new job with reputed engineering firms. Majority of thestudents agreed that CSP helped them to apply their class room knowledge and laboratory skillsinto industrial projects. They expressed that CSP’s gave them a great opportunity to work in ateam and helped them to network with fellow students from other disciplines and industry 471experts. They considered these projects as skill building activities that will be useful in their firstprofessional jobs. They also stressed the importance of project planning and communicationwhile working on these projects. Students appreciated the freedom to work independently on theCSP

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bob Fourney; Jason Sternhagen; George Hamer; Cory Mettler

students aware of the continuity in the electrical engineering 329 program.  Motivate the students by giving undergraduate lab exercises a sense of purpose.  Unify the various EE undergraduate classes to each other.  Connect the senior design experience to the rest of the undergraduate curriculum. Figure 2. Fully Equipped CEENBoT.Completing this course will provide students with a basic understanding and familiarity oflaboratory equipment, prototyping methods, and basic device/ circuit functions. This course wastaught for the first time in the spring of 2012, revised and offered again in the spring of 2013.Several laboratory requirements were developed and

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Reza Fazel-Rezai; Sima Noghanian; Ahmed Rabbi

Engineeringand Mines in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The summer camp was named MAT-ME(MATLAB, Mathematics, and Engineering) and was aimed to promote Math andEngineering among high school students in the state of North Dakota. We ran the one-week long MAT-ME camp three times in summer of years 2010, 2011, and 2012. In thispaper, we will describe the teaching materials that we developed, the results of studentsand parents’ evaluations, and the lessons learned during the three years that the camp washeld.IntroductionWell-documented trends have been reported nationally of declining interest, poorpreparedness, a lack of diverse representation, and low persistence of U.S. students inSTEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines. A

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

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

alsoprovided.Data from Questionnaires to StudentsDerived from the survey, plots in Figure 2(a)–2(f) provide results on how students rate thequestions asked (shown above each plot). In general, students agreed with how the instructorstructured and paced the course to provide sufficient time for completing each learning activityof the class, such as online quizzes, lab exercises, homework assignments, and the team project.It is very interesting to observe from Figure 2(d), many students indicated that insufficientinstructions were provided for the team project. It shows disparities between teaching andlearning goals in this course and, perhaps, other engineering courses in general, because this wasthe intent of the course instructor to motivate student

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nischal Adhikari; Sima Noghanian

abstract field, due to difficulty ofintegrating tangible and realistic experiments into electrical engineering curriculum. Sometimessetting up a laboratory for these experiments could be very expensive. Therefore, a lot of timeusing simulation tools is a good alternative to examine and visualize the realistic problems.However, the available simulation software may require vast technical proficiency, whichsometime impedes the inclination of students towards this area of study.In this paper we introduce a ray-tracing simulation tool that can be beneficial in teaching wavepropagation and wireless communication. Wireless InSite®, from Remcom®, is a site-specificwireless channel simulation tool based on ray-tracing method. This paper introduces

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Cory J. Prust; Stephen M. Williams

challenges within astructured design course.Shifting budget priorities within engineering departments has meant that a wide range ofinstructors teach senior design. Often, fewer full-time, tenure-track faculty members are teachingdesign. The gap is filled in a number of different ways: graduate student-teachers, adjunct faculty(particularly from industry), and professors of practice.With these drivers, it can be challenging to create and deliver a coherent design experience thatmeets all of these objectives. This paper will present the configuration, tools, and methodologiesof a senior design course sequence that addresses its large menu of objectives in a rational,structured fashion.IntroductionThroughout the Bachelor of Science in Electrical

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Thomas Shepard; Michaela Andrews; Cole Harris

to material to be further explored in later courses including moments, safety factor, and material propertiesThis paper describes the results of this experience as well as the experimental apparatusdeveloped and lessons learned through multiple iterations.Laboratory ExperienceEach lab section for the class had ~15 students and was staffed by the course instructor and twoundergraduate student mentors. These paid student mentors were typically sophomore or juniorengineering majors who had received a quick refresher lesson on drilling and tapping. Theintroduction to engineering space was in a separate building from the main engineeringdepartment facilities and included a large classroom and laboratory space stocked with handtools. At the

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

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

theestate of Fulton and Edna Holtby. The goal was to promote professional activities of students,faculty, and staff in areas of research, scholarship, course development and professionaldevelopment by providing funds for stipend, travel, buyout for release time and purchase ofequipment, services and supplies. These funds were to be used to offer undergraduate andgraduate students opportunity to explore special topics outside of their formal coursework thatinspired their creativity and imagination through additional research and exploration and earncollege credit for their work. As structured coursework rarely offers extended, stress-freeenvironment conducive to learning and exploration, ideas were developed for student projects toprovide laboratory