Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Marian S. Stachowicz

Fuzzy Versus Conventional Control Marian S. Stachowicz, Laboratory for Intelligent Systems, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, USA, The Warsaw School of Computer Science, Warsaw, Poland mstachow@d.umn.eduAbstractThis article presents notes from the interdisciplinary course ECE 5831 Fuzzy Sets Theory and ItsApplications and an introduction part to ECE 4951 Design Workshop dedicated to IntelligentControl, both taught at the ECE Department, University of Minnesota Duluth. What are theadvantages and disadvantages of fuzzy control as compared to conventional

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

M. S. Stachowicz; L. B. Kofoed

Problem Based Learning Principles for projects with “soft” evaluation. 1 M. S. Stachowicz, 2L. B. Kofoed Laboratory for Intelligent Systems, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, USA, The Warsaw School of Computer Science, Warsaw, Poland mstachow@d.umn.edu1 Department of Architecture, Design & Media Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark, lk@create.aau.dk2IntroductionInspired by a design workshop course offered at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department(ECE) at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) [1] we could see

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Neil J. Hutzler; Joan S. Chadde; David Heil; Mia Jackson

Family Engineering for Elementary-Aged Children and Their Parents Neil J. Hutzler1, Joan S. Chadde1, David Heil2, and Mia Jackson2 1 Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 2Foundation for Family Science and Engineering, Portland, ORAbstractThe goal of the Family Engineering program is to engage, inspire, and encourage elementarystudents to learn about and consider careers in engineering and science through hands-onactivities with their parents at Family Engineering events. This program is designed toaddress the United States need for an increased number, and greater diversit , of studentsskilled in math, science, technology, and engineering. The Family Engineering program for6-12 year-olds and

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Alon McCormick

Numerical Methods in the ChEn curriculum: One Program s Evolution over 30 Years (Extended Abstract) Alon McCormick, from discussions with Prodromos Daoutidis, Jeff Derby, Kevin Dorfman, Yiannis Kaznessis, and Satish Kumar Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 554551980 s First ChEn course in the curriculum is Numerical Methods Ted Davis introduced required ChEn Numerical Methods course in the Sophomore year (following Freshman Fortran prerequisite) a e f f da a c e our ChEn

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Keith B. Lodge

; another responsibility is the implementation of continuous processimprovement by improving the experiments and their descriptions. This has been the sameperson since the course s inception; it was first run in 2003. It was developed from an electivelecture-only course that this individual gave in 2000; it was found that particle technology is arich subject for class-demonstrations and the experiments to be described grew out of these. Theapparatus for the experiments was constructed with readily available components and simplebench-top or hand tools; no machine-shop work was required. Two texts have been used over the history of the course, viz. Introduction to ParticleTechnology (1) and Fundamentals of Particle Technology (2). The latter one is

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Stephen Patchin; Cody Kangas; Jamie Lindquist

Mind Trekkers Science and Engineering Festivals: Inspiring K-12 students to explore STEM Stephen Patchin, Cody Kangas, and Jamie Lindquist Michigan Technological UniversityThe Challenge O Ma 5, 2010 e Na a Sc e ce B a d b ed a e ed P e a e NeGeneration of STEM Innovators: Identifying and Developing Our Nation H a Ca a .S ed b e Na a Sc e ce F da , e e e ed ec e dato support the identification and development of talented young men and women who have the e a bec e C e e e a n of science, technology, engineering, andmathematics (STEM

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Waddah Akili

Case-Based Learning: A Creative Experience in Comparison to Traditional Teaching Methods Waddah Akili Geotechnical EngineeringA b s t r a c tThis paper describes the steps taken in planning, developing, and executing a case study/ casehistory course in geotechnical/ foundation engineering at an international university. The paper ed : a ab e a ec e a a ed a ; e a a ecourse; and the results of evaluating the effectiveness of this approach versus traditionallecturing. Problems and challenges that could arise when offering the course for the first time arealso addressed. Embedded in this

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Ryan G. Rosandich

Society of Mechanical Engineers, http://www.asme.org (accessed 8/10/2011). 2. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Vision 2030: Creating the Future of Mechanical Engineering Education (Draft), ASME Center for Education (March 2011). 3 . Personal notes from Industr /Uni ersit ME Education Solutions Workshop, 2011 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Education Conference, Clearwater Beach Florida, March 24-26, 2011. 4. N a ti o n al S cie n ce F o u n d atio n, h t t p s : / / w e b c a s p a r . n s f . g o v , WebCASPAR Integrated Science and Engineering Resources Data System ( a c c e s s e d 8 / 9 / 2 0 1 1 ) . 5. Judith M. Gappa, Off the Tenure Track: Six Models for Full-Time Nontenurable Appointments

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Derek Wissmiller

containing only conventionalnumerical calculation type questions.Introduction Learning is a constructive process in which new knowledge builds upon priorknowledge.1, 2 It is for this reason that there is increased interest in inductive instructionalmethods like inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, and just-in-time teaching to namea few. A common feature of these inductive methods is that questions or problems form thecontext for learning.3 Thus, formative assessments based on questions/problems can play afundamentally important role in student learning. The degree to which homework/activity questions impact student learning can beevaluated by considering them relative to Bloom s taxonom . In order of increasing

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Ahmet Turkmen; Jon Breen

ca a c a a afrequency. Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Section ConferenceT a d db = s/N, as mentioned earlier. As can be seen,a higher sampling frequency lowers the resolution of the frequency domain representation of thesignal, but a higher sample size increases the resolution. When applied to musical notes, thislinear distribution of discrete frequencies is important because musical notes do not distributethemselves at equal intervals. Musical notes are typically denoted A, B, C, D, E, F, or G. Thisrepresents one octave of notes and there are several octaves within human hearing range. Theoctave a note is in is generally

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Carl Sandness; Tom Jamar; Roy Smith; j. Moe Benda

The Engineering Advisory Committee One Solution Closing he Gap in he Iron Range s Engineering Education: K-14 Carl Sandness, Tom Jamar, Roy Smith, J. Moe Benda University of Minnesota DuluthAbstract: The Iron Range will never be the same. A powerful and influential group fromcommunities surrounding Hibbing Minnesota has aligned to ensure area students have everyopportunity to discover engineering as their lifelong passion. Powerful is not based on anyorganizational chart but rather an attitude of we-will-make-it-happen. The group started as theHibbing High School Engineering Advisory Committee. Creating an ad-hoc partnership

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Lisa Anneberg; Jiao luo; Suyun Luo

Lawrence TechnologicalUniversity in Southfield, Michigan and Shanghai University of Engineering Science in Shanghai, China.AUTHOR INFORMATIONLisa Anneberg has been an Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor at Lawrence Technological University located inSouthfield, MI since 1991. Her email is lanneberg@ltu.edu.Jiao Luo has been an Automotive Engineering Professor, Shanghai University of Engineering Science since 2010. Her emailis jo-jiao@hotmail.com.Suyun Luo has been an Automotive Engineering Professor, Shanghai University of Engineering Science since 2002. Heremail is lsyluo@163.comREFERENCES[1] Chine e S den mo i a ional belief abo Engli h lea ning , Miao Y ,http://www.readingmatrix.com

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Waddah Akili

planned and implemented, depends on: faculty foresight,available resources, and the commitment-on the part of the faculty and the administration-to themission.The paper reports on a success story of such a merger in a geotechnical/foundation class. Thesuccess achieved was attributed, in large measure, to the proper coordination that precededcourse delivery. In this exercise, an experienced and willing practitioner was sought out tosupplement the regular lectures offered in an elective course to 4th year civil engineering .S a a , , and overall impressions (during-and atthe end of the course) have been very encouraging to say the least! The positive outcome of thisexperience has lead other faculty

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Daniel N. Pope

thevelocity vectors in the inlet plenum at a specified time (0.001 s) during the intake stroke. Thesimulation was conducted with the one equation Spalart-Allmaras model for turbulence, and auser-defined function (UDF) was employed in Fluent to model the time-varying pressureboundary condition at the outlet of the plenum. A video of the flow in the plenum covering theentire intake, compression, expansion, exhaust sequence was created. Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Section Conference (a) Mesh and Named Surfaces (b) Example Results – Static Pressure Contour Plot Figure 2: Analysis of a single gas turbine stage; mesh and sample results. (a) Side View

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Kristine Guzak; Kurt Paterson

In someinstitutions, this service involvement has fueled the creation of courses and programs thatoffer Learning Through Service (LTS) which seems to attract a wider range of students toengineering. A growing body of evidence advocates that LTS may provide significantadvantages to engineering students, but studies to date are quite limited.11-15 Asuniversities play catch-up to these trends, a fundamental question remains unexplored:What motivates engineering students to be engaged in service?2. ObjectivesThis paper presents findings to the above question of student motivation from two LTSprograms at Michigan Technological University: (1) iDesign, an international senior-level capstone design program, and (2) Peace Corp Master s International

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Richard A. Davis

(2) where x is the expected value for x calculated from the mean value of n replicated measurements 1 x x (3) n and ux is the combined uncertainty due to random (uR) and systematic (uZ) errors in the measured values: ux uR2 uZ2 (4) 2. Assume random errors are normally distributed and use the standard error in Equation (5) for the random uncertainty in terms of the standard deviation s, and the sample size, n

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

P. B. Ravikumar

are strong willed b. Of the degree to which you are respectable c. Of the degree to which you are adaptable d. Of the degree to which you are authenticQUESTION VII: Are you more of an extrovert (E) or an introvert (I)? ______(E or I?)QUESTION VIII: Do you notice information more by Sensing (S) or by intuition (N)? ______ (S or N?) Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Section ConferenceQUESTION IX: Do you make decisions more by thinking (T) or by feeling (F)? _____ (T or F?)QUESTION X: Would you like to live in a world run more by judging (J) or by perceiving (P)? ______ (J or P?)It is appropriate at this point to discuss the underlying principles/theory/literature that served as drivers togenerate

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Christopher R. Carroll

-of-products or product-of-sums form leads to he m ec n mical im lemen a i n, he de igne in he final im lemen a i n i n n-existent. In the ultimate insult to a digital designer, it is even possible to simply input the truthtable of the desired function(s) and the software will determine the optimal implementation.Where is the design effort to be assessed?In current CPLD implementations, the flip-flop in each macrocell can be implemented as either aD- or a T-type flip-flop. The configuration software decides which flip-flop type yields the bestresult, not the circuit designer. If the designer specifies the less-optimal type, the software will Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Section

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

R. Nelson; J. Bumblis; C. Liu; A. Turkmen; N. Zhou; D. Olson; R. Rothaupt

, electronics, digital logic andcontrol systems) the need for more focused, in-depth preparation in the areas of embedded systems wasrecognized several years ago. Such recognition led to UW-S B a REducation Committee of the University of Wisconsin (UW) System to authorize the establishment of a Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Section Conferencededicated program in Computer Engineering. Final approval was given by the UW System Board ofRegents on August 22, 2008. As a point of interest, approval was also granted at the same time toauthorize a new program in Plastics Engineering (PE) at UW-Stout.Program Overview and DevelopmentThe process of requesting a new program in the University

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Eric Musselman

account the limited experiences of many of the students. The objectives of such acourse are typically to increase the students understanding of what engineering is, provide somebackground knowledge and experiences that will serve as a foundation for the material they willlearn over the next 4 years, and to encourage the student s interested in the field of engineering.Typically the culmination of these classes takes the form of a design project. The format of thedesign projects can vary, and this paper will discuss two very different formats that the authorhas used thus far in the Introduction to Civil Engineering course at the University of MinnesotaDuluth (UMD). A brief description of each project will be provided, as well as a discussion ofthe

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Debao Zhou

.[3] Analog Devices Inc. http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/eval_boards/143456412ADXL321EB_0.pdf,accessed October 12, 2011.[4] Kenneth Waldron and Gary Kinzel, Kinematics, Dynamics and Design of Machinery, 2nd edition, Wiley& Sons, 2003, ISBN-13: 978-0471244172.[5] J a S edbe g, Pa h Fi di g T ac Vehic e , 2010 ASME S de Mecha i & R b De ig C eii ,Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Aug. 15-18, 2010, http://www.stevens.edu/msrobotics/SMRDC2010/. Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Section Conference

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

D. A. Rogers; B. D. Braaten

United States in the wake of Sputnik and the scientificacc ih e f he S ie U i . F e a e, he C b Law review introducedsome students to an entirely vector description of electromagnetics problems, many of which e i ed i eg a ca c f i . Ga f a d di e ge ce theorems quickly led toP i e a i , hich d be e e ed i he h ee c c di a e e . Thedivergence theorem led to G ee fi a d ec d ide i ie , proved in detail, with the Dirichletand Neumann conditions used to derive the Uniqueness Theorem. It should be noted that in amodern course the tendency is to pass over most of the details of the proofs of these theoremsdue to the compression of a multitude of subjects into one

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Mike Rowe

seems to address the issue of programming as being overly technical . With traditionalprogramming languages students are required to learn complex vocabularies and grammars, incontrast programming in Alice involves dragging and dropping of well formed and validprogram statements. Modification of these statements is done by selecting options fromdropdown menus. It is impossible to produce the dreaded compile error and very unlikely toproduce a program that doesn t run the ver first time. This eliminates of the need to memorizea vocabulary and grammar, which subsequently speeds up the opportunity to experience creativeexpression. It should also be noted that the wide selection of more than a 1000 animation objects ith tens of 1000 s of methods

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Enemuoh Emmanuel Ugo; Samuel Kwofie

sustainability of a product at a design stage; (5) Studentsbecome familiar with writing conventions of engineering journals; and (6) Students learn to workand write in multicultural and multidisciplinary teams.Few of the disadvantages that may be associated with this approach of learning are: (1) The cost ofcompleting the three credits course is higher than a normal three credit course taken at home; and(2) Increased faculty and student time is required daily to accommodate the cultural activities; tours;projects; evaluation of reports; and presentations.V. Assessment of CourseS den s Assessmen . Students are assessed on the three areas of the course: lecture/project;report/presentation; and cultural activities/tours. S de a ici a i he jec

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Christa James-Byrnes; Mark Holdhusen

project. The survey is included inthe appendix. This survey was given to both the traditional face-to-face section as well as the i e ec i a d a S de -test was performed to compare the results between sections.Table 2 shows the results for each question on this survey including the averages and p-valuesfrom a t-test. Question Online Mean Traditional P-value Mean 1 4.56 4.38 0.5053 2 4.56 4.08 0.1226 3 4.67 4.15 0.1032 4 4.56 4.31 0.4109

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Katherine Acton

Learning S r c ral Anal i in A B ilding ha Teache Katherine Acton University of Minnesota DuluthAbstractThe Swenson Civil Engineering Building, opened in 2010, was constructed with the goalof providing a space in which, and from which, Civil Engineering students can learn.Multiple exposed structural systems allow students the opportunity to visualize the wayin which the building is designed to carry load. The building is LEED certified. A largehigh-bay lab is open to view, so that class work and research is visible to students as theypass through the halls of the building.The high bay lab features two 15-ton gantry cranes. The gantry cranes have beenanalyzed in the

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

A. Hoxie

Table 3: Country H e e e ab e e e g e ihc .The PHPP provided students with verification that their homes met the 4.75 kBtu/sf/year requirement as e a h acc i g f a gai a d e ai i g hea de a d. Fig e 1 h The Shack h ecific hea de a d. The S S ec. L e h he c i g ad d i g he emonths. In most cases these loads are minimal for our area and can be met with natural ventilation ornight cooling with the ERV. The monthly heating graph was an important output of the program. Thestudents used it as a tool to choose the appropriate technology for meeting the heating demand and forsizing the system. They needed to be aware of not only the total yearly heating

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Lisa Watrous; Mari Buche; Susan Bagley; Jason Keith

and minorities more strongly attracted to opportunities forcollaborative, interdisciplinary scholarship (cluster-based) than to traditional departmental(replacement hire) positions?In order to assess the gendered faculty climate at Michigan Tech and to determine areas forrecruitment improvement, he A ca S e a de e ed (Appendix). This survey wasdesigned and distributed in conjunction with the University Affirmative Programs Office andsent to all faculty applicants prior to initial screening and before interviewing. The survey wasa ed b M ch ga Tech I a Re e B a d (M0334).The Applicant Survey wasvoluntary and consisted of 20 questions meant to highlight various individual gender and racedistinctions as

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

William C. Farrow

payload module will fit within a 3.5 x 3.5 x 7 inch volume (total rapid prototype volume available for each team). Must be safe for a typical college student to operate.Each eam a lied i h a De ign S o Ki ha incl ded all he ma e ial andequipment necessary for the reverse engineering of the rocket as well as the fabrication of theCam-A-Rok system. The components included in the Design Support Kit are listed in Table 1and can be seen in Figure 2. Table 1 Design Project Support Kit Parts List Item No. Description 1 Project Case Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Conference 2 Camera Kit

Collection

2011 North Midwest Section

Authors

Byron Garry

the rubric. Modify the rubric as needed. Proceedings of the 2011 North Midwest Section ConferenceWe use rubrics consistently in our EET program, but as we go through our continuousimprovement process, we often see that the rubric we are using is measuring the wrong aspectsof what we want, or is the wrong kind of rubric. We continually are reassessing how we measurestudent progress.Bibliography1. ABET. 2011-12 Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Technology Programs. Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Technology Accreditation Commission. Baltimore, MD. Retrieved June 1, 2011 from http://www.abet.org/Linked Documents-UPDATE/Program Docs/abet-tac-criteria-2011-2012.pdf2. Brookhart, S. M