Conference Session

Programming for Engineering Students II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy Craig, North Carolina State University; Lisa Bullard, North Carolina State University; Jeff Joines, North Carolina State University; Tom Miller, North Carolina State University; Carolyn Miller, North Carolina State University; Dianne Raubenheimer; George Rouskas, North Carolina State University; Larry Silverberg, North Carolina State University; Eric Wiebe, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

integral part of the ongoing activities. One research and assessment method beingemployed is the Delphi method. This formal communication process will be used to gatherconsensus among faculty, industry leaders and students in an effort to identify sets ofcomputational skills vital for engineering professionals. Descriptions and reflections of the firstyear of project activities will be presented as well as plans for future activities. Preliminaryassessment data will also be available.1. IntroductionTwo decades ago to say that an engineering graduate was highly competent in computing meantthat he or she had mastered the FORTRAN programming language. A decade later it meant, inaddition, mastering basic skills in a few key discipline-specific

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Roger Hadgraft, The University of Melbourne

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

PowerPoint slides. Our roleshould be to get students working on the tutorial exercises and assignment problems anddesign projects.Professional practice The engineering method is the use of heuristics to cause the best change in a poorly understood situation within the available resources 13.As we grapple with more complex problems, it is even more obvious that we must teach theprofessional practice of engineering (which should include the practice of engineeringresearch). Students will then understand:• The lifecycle of engineering artefacts and the roles of engineers from strategic planning through design and construction and operation to decommissioning and recycling• The engineering method that guides their work• The

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dianne Raubenheimer, North Carolina State University; Rebecca Brent, Education Designs Inc.; Jeff Joines, North Carolina State University; Amy Craig, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

Education, 2008 Integration of Computer-Based Problem Solving into Engineering CurriculaAbstractThe primary objectives of this engineering project are (1) to examine how to develop students’problem solving and computational skills early in their program of study and (2) to furtherenhance these skills by building upon critical computing concepts semester after semester. Theproject is a component of NC State University’s quality enhancement plan, which focuses on theuse of technology in enhancing student learning. The project stems from new introductorycomputer-based modeling courses that were created in two engineering departments, and hasexpanded to include other departments. We give an overview of the

Conference Session

Embedded Computing

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Holden, California Maritime Academy

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

teaching microcontrollers, as it combines a simpleprogram with the peripherals on the chip to create a compelling and useful example. Thestudents who completed the microcontroller portion of the class were in general excited aboutusing them in other projects such as their senior capstone project. Page 13.1275.10The approach of adding short microcontroller modules to existing lower-division classes wouldseem to be a good one, as it allows the students to gain useful skills without taking extra units.With the success of this class, plans are being made to incorporate microcontroller topics in theComputer Programming as well as the Circuit

Conference Session

Programming for Engineering Students I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Louis Plebani, Lehigh University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

provide a framework and base computer code forstudents to achieve an ease of modeling and solution for dynamic programming similar towhat has been achieved for linear programming. In so far as the teaching dynamicprogramming, this will allow educators in operations research to focus their teaching onissues relevant to dynamic programming as opposed to computer programming issues; andallow students in operations research to focus their learning on the power of dynamicprogramming, as opposed to the nuances of computer implementations.Since the formulation of Dynamic programming (DP) by Bellman,1 it has been successfullyapplied to a variety of problems, including capacity planning, equipment replacement,production planning, production control

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Chi Thai, University of Georgia

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

time spent "on-task" by the students and also to observe the problem-solving approaches used by students during planned independent problem-solving activities. TheTeacher Tablet PC secondary task is to "activate" the NSM Control tools on selected student PCsas part of the sequence to get our instructional system into the two "collaborative" modes to bedescribed in details below.For the first mode, called "collaborative community work", Figure 2 described the ITarchitecture to deploy the NSM Control tools on the student PCs in order to let them access theTeacher Desktop PC, essentially serving as an E-chalkboard, where the community work would

Conference Session

Computer Simulation and Animation II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christiaan Gribble, Grove City College

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

‚ Kevin Suffren. Ray Tracing from the Ground Up. AK Peters, ISBN 978-1-56881- 272-4, 2007. This text offers a more comprehensive view of ray tracing theory and practice. Topics range from algorithm basics to advanced techniques that would be explored in the context of a second course on ray tracing. A wide range of code examples are also included throughout the text.The Suffern text was not yet available for our initial offering, so we opted for the Shirley text.However, in future versions of the course, we plan to adopt the Suffern book as the main text andsuggest the Shirley text as a highly recommended (but optional) resource.Topics from the text are supplemented by readings from the ray

Conference Session

Embedded Computing

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Alejandra J. Magana; Sean Brophy, Purdue University; George Bodner, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

learningoutcomes, b) determining the acceptable evidence of that learning, and c) planning theexperiences and instruction. In identifying the desired results, Wiggins and McTighe 9provide a further classification of three levels for establishing curricular priorities one Page 13.1005.5embedded inside another and ranging from knowledge worth being familiar with toenduring understanding.Learning OutcomeFor the case of both instructors, it has been identified that learning experiencesaccompanied by simulation tools were used to convey concepts having “endurance valuebeyond the classroom” (Wiggins and McTighe, p.10) 9 . While instructor A used thesimulation tool to

Conference Session

Re-Imagining the Higher Ed Classroom -- Tablet PCs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dewey Spangler, Virginia Western Community College; Kimberly Filer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

information gained from this pilot study, activities can be further developed using theTablet PC to enhance the learning of mechanical engineering students. With the study expandingin spring 2008 to include a control group, our goal is to better understand the Tablet PCs impacton the teaching and learning process. Using a refined assessment instrument in a pretest/posttestdesign, we will measure the change in student learning strategies from the beginning to the endof the semester and determine if the table PC is changing the way in which future engineers useinformation to learn.The mechanical engineering department at Virginia Tech plans to increase implementation ofTablet PC based learning in the fall of 2008 when additional ME 2024 instructors

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Nabil Lehlou, University of Arkansas; Nebil Buyurgan, University of Arkansas; Justin Chimka, University of Arkansas

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

, the soil can tell the water that it is thirsty. This vision became aninspiration for one of the research topics: “Everything is alive1,” also known as EiA. “Everythingis Alive” is a concept that says that all objects in the world can be connected to a network calledthe “Internet of Things2” and be intelligent enough to communicate with humans as well as otherobjects without human intervention. Once these abilities are acquired by an object, it is called an“EiA agent,” and it is said alive because it can interact with humans and agents.While many people think that the vision of the future is just a dream and may not be feasible atall, EiA does have a plan to make it come true. Ideally, one can integrate a microchip into anobject, program it to

Conference Session

Computer Simulation and Animation I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Othoniel Rodriguez-Jimenez, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico; Carlos Pacheco, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico; Nelson Reyes-Aviles, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico; Marisol Mercado, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

of SQL injectionattacks. Other features like search for available courses to view or edit by using partial coursecode entry, or data validation, are not discussed here as these are considered standard usabilityfeatures.ConclusionThe Unisyllabus application was designed to address some of the problems that plague themanagement of syllabi for a program, a department or a campus. Besides tackling the syllabiconsolidation problem, it also seeks to make syllabi users more aware of ABET and similaraccreditation bodies issues. The developers have started to populate the system with the syllabifor their Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Once all the syllabi are in place andwe do not find any major concerns we plan on deploying

Conference Session

Mobile Robots in Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Anthony Reed, Louisiana Tech University; Taylor Creekbaum, Louisiana Tech University; Matthew Elliott, Louisiana Tech University; David Hall, Louisiana Tech University; Davis Harbour, Louisiana Tech University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

AC 2008-2360: UTILIZING ROBOTICS TO FACILITATE PROJECT-BASEDLEARNING: A STUDENT PERSPECTIVEAnthony Reed, Louisiana Tech University Anthony Reed is a sophomore at Louisiana Tech University majoring in biomedical engineering. He graduated from a residential high school in Louisiana and plans to pursue a career in medicine after graduating.Taylor Creekbaum, Louisiana Tech University Taylor Creekbaum is a sophomore at Louisiana Tech University majoring in biomedical engineering. He graduated from the same residential high school as Anthony Reed, and he has a special interest in computer applications.Matthew Elliott, Louisiana Tech University Matthew Elliott is a freshman at Louisiana Tech

Conference Session

Web-Based Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ece Yaprak, Wayne State University; Karen Tonso, Wayne State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

June), with the first undergraduate course held in fall 2007. Thisfour-semester-hour undergraduate course would meet from three to five in the afternoon onMondays and Wednesdays. Yaprak planned to hold lecture sessions on some Mondays, with lab Page 13.1024.5time on Wednesdays and Mondays when no lecture was scheduled. Thus, the spring/summercourse would allow graduate students to pursue individualized study and the fall course wouldteach about a wider range of topics to all students.During the winter term, faculty began to meet on a biweekly basis and one of Mahmud’sgraduate student agreed to help with lab development as an independent study

Conference Session

Re-Imagining the Higher Ed Classroom -- Tablet PCs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Camilla Saviz, University of the Pacific; Abel Fernandez, University of the Pacific; Ken Hughes, Unversity of the Pacific; Megan Kalend, University of the Pacific; Cherian Mathews, University of the Pacific

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

Modesto, CA; responsible for materials management and process controls. On campus, she serves as president for the student chapter of the American Society for Engineering Management, and as treasurer for the Society of Women Engineers and Tau Beta Pi. She is also a student advisor for the University and enjoys coaching youth volleyball. She will graduate with a B.S. in 2009 and plans to attend graduate school for a M.S. in Engineering Management.Cherian Mathews, University of the Pacific Cherian P. Mathews is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of the Pacific. He received a B.E degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Anna University

Conference Session

Programming for Engineering Students I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Birmingham, Grove City College; Vincent DiStasi, Grove City College

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

. Page 13.144.4 Figure 1: Mixed PowerPoint and notes.The hand written and drawn comments were made during the lecture. The polygon withnumerous points was drawn in response to a question about a figure that would cause theclipping algorithm problems (i.e., a pathological case).Figure 2 provides an example of a “panel” that was written completely by hand during thelecture. In this case, there is a mix of drawing and equations (both are relatively simple, butnonetheless demonstrate the capability). This panel was developed over about a five minuteinteractive portion of the lecture, where the lecturer drew the coordinate plan and theslope/intercept line equation and asked the students to draw the resulting line as it

Conference Session

Embedded Computing

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christopher Carroll, University of Minnesota-Duluth

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

communicatewith the host LINUX multiuser computer for normal lab operation.Squeezing system software for the lab station into 3K bytes of EEPROM was a challenge,especially considering the fact that several large lookup tables needed to be included such ascharacter generator tables to produce character images on the alphanumeric display, andkeycode-to-ASCII tables to report alphanumeric keyboard entries in a standardized way. In fact,some planned features of the software had to be omitted in order to fit in the 3K bytes of spaceavailable, but the resulting software does allow student users to access and edit files on the hostcomputer, assemble their programs, download the resulting object code from the host, and runtheir programs on the lab station, which

Conference Session

Embedded Computing

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeff Wiegley, California State University-Northridge

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

the necessarybalance correction forces.The Handyboard is a common 68HC11 architecture and one plan is to task futurestudents with stripping off the Handyboard firmware and developing 68HC11 nativecode for solving this problem. This also has the advantage of instructing studentsin more specific instruction sets rather than the higher level interpreted languageprovided by the RCX, NXT and Handyboard platforms.Canadian Traffic LightsAnother goal of the projects is to introduce students to new and interesting conceptsbeyond the course theory. Most embedded devices are responsible for multitaskingand frequently utilize real-time operating systems to provide task prioritization andguarantee task completion.The Rabbit semiconductor platform is used

Conference Session

Computer Simulation and Animation II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Brooks, Temple University; Asher Madjar, Temple University; William Miller; Keerthi V. Takkalapelli, Temple University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

. Thefinite elements are actually complete rings in the circumferential direction, and the nodal pointsat which they are connected are circular lines in plan view. Because of axisymmetry, the three-dimensional problem reduces to a two-dimensional case similar to a plane strain problem.Tensile stresses and strains were taken to be positive, and compressive stresses and strainsnegative. For each element the four nodal points were numbered in the clockwise direction. Eachnode has two degrees of freedom.Displacement FunctionsThe two displacement components in a solid continuum varied as complicated functions ofposition. A number of approaches, including power series and Fourier series expansions, have

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sabina Jeschke, University of Stuttgart; Olivier Pfeiffer, Technische Universitaet Berlin; Thomas Richter, University of Stuttgart

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

pedagogical concepts to support teaching of mathematics for mathematicians, engineers and natural scientists - at the TU Berlin in 2001, as a research assistant at SFB609 in Dresden from 2002-2004, and is now part of the Team of the MuLF (Center for Multimedia in Education and Research) at the TU Berlin). In the past three years, Olivier Pfeiffer focused on the organization and coordination of the involved teams and contributed to several other eLTR related projects. He is also involved in the planning and application of future eLTR projects at the Berlin University of Technology and the local coordinator at the TU Berlin of the EMECW3 project. His research interest focuses on the

Conference Session

Web-Based Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mahmoud Quweider, The University of Texas at Brownsville; Fitra Khan, U of Texas at Brownsville; Juan Iglesias, The University of Texas at Brownsville

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

, are discussed in a later section.In addition to regular courses, the NDPL was made available to students, faculty, and staff of theuniversity to fulfill their senior project requirements, conduct independent research, and preparefor industrial and national certification (in areas such as Networking, Telecommunications, and Page 13.363.5Operating Systems Administration) respectively. Many of the senior projects will be anexpansion of work started by the students in the key targeted courses.Engineering Plan & LayoutThe lab uses a total of approximately 22’ x 36’ lab area. The infrastructure networkingequipment was complemented by the

Conference Session

Educational Software

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cameron Wright, University of Wyoming; Michael Morrow, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Mark Allie, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Thad Welch, Boise State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

, whichprovides exposure to engineering topics to interested and motivated high school sophomores fromaround the state. Only about 100 applicants are accepted each year for this program, now in its22nd year. The students live on the University campus for three weeks and learn about humanities,sciences, and engineering. A sequence of classes/demos is given by the ECE department, whichcovers a broad range of topics in digital systems. We plan to augment several of those lessons byusing the C6713 DSKs with winDSK6 software. In particular, audio special effects and a verybasic introduction to sampling are appropriate for this audience.We also conduct the Engineering Summer Program (ESP) for high school juniors. This program ismuch newer than HSI, is focused

Conference Session

Programming for Engineering Students II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeremy Garrett, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Thomas Walker, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

design visuals in the lecture/project portion of EngE 1104 – does count as using this language outside of officially assigned course work.) (1) true (2) falseLimitationsThe research plan called for the survey to be administered during a standard class meeting.Although completing the survey was optional, the expectation was that this procedure wouldgather responses from nearly all of the approximately 280 students. Unfortunately, the tragicevents at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007 occurred shortly before the survey was to beadministered. To allow for student recovery from that traumatic event, all classes becameoptional during the last three weeks of the school year. To address that issue, students remainingon campus

Conference Session

Computer Education Management Tools II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Suleiman Ashur, Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne; S. Scott Moor, Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne; Essam Zaneldin, Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

. 18. I have accessLab recommendations to improve academic performanceWhen students asked about steps they recommend, pertaining to the labs that may improve theiracademic performance, they either recommended “do nothing,” requested more lab hours, ormore privacy in the lab. The following is the list of selected comments:Labs Are Fine 1. At the time I would say finding time to get into here when I need to print stuff out. So I simply need to organize and plan better. 2. Designate a full-time open lab. 3. I do not understand what this question is asking. The only improvements would be to keep the Citrix option.Accessibility- More Time 1. Maybe longer hours on weekend. 2. Have the labs open earlier in the mornings because I