Conference Session

Electrical & Computer Engineering Division Poster Session

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ramakrishnan Sundaram, Gannon University; Qing Zheng, Gannon University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

curriculum. Thehigh school students in the K-12 school programs participate in an Engineering Dayevent. During this event, the students work on the ECE projects selected to have thenecessary STEM components that enable the student to observe and relate scientifictheory to engineering design principles and practices. The Engineering Day at GannonUniversity will form the direct outreach component of University partnership programwith K-12 schools to (a) raise the level of awareness among K-12 students of thepromising careers in the engineering disciplines upon graduation with baccalaureateand/or advanced degrees (b) establish and sustain the dialog between the K-12 schoolsand Gannon University to encourage the K-12 school students to pursue and excel

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gordon Skelton, Jackson State University; Wei Zheng, Jackson State University; HuiRu Shih, Jackson State University; Evelyn Leggette, Jackson State University; Tzusheng Pei, Jackson State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

ofbeing directly applicable to potential career choices they would be making after graduating in thenear future, whether that decision regarded graduate school or full-time employment. Many ofthe students reported that they were pleased that the course involved Linux since theirknowledge/experience of Linux was questioned on some of their recent job interviews.Since the class was composed of 15 students, it was easy to create 5 teams of 3 students each.Each team was assigned a common set of tasks required to create a wireless Linux cluster. Thecluster was to be composed of 4 nodes and a server.Initially, the students were given an overview of the concepts of software and systemsengineering, problem solving, and how project management related to

Conference Session

Embedded System Design

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sven Bilen, Pennsylvania State University; Okhtay Azarmanesh, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

. Indeed, the defining aspect of SDR is its extremely multidisciplinary nature,requiring a tremendous breadth of knowledge and background in a wide variety of subjects.Successful SDR development is contingent on the successful integration and synthesis ofmaterial taught across the entire electrical engineering (EE) and computer science andengineering (CSE) undergraduate curricula. The Challenge allows the students to develop theskills and mindsets they will require in their careers, regardless of whether or not they work inthe SDR domain.Smart Radio Challenge Affecting the Learning of SDR DesignAs stated above, the SDR design domain employs many different aspects of telecommunicationsand design tools, covering antennas and EM environment

Conference Session

Student Engagement in ECE

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eric Freudenthal, University of Texas, El Paso; Rebeca Gonzalez, Chapin High School; Sarah Hug, University of Colorado; Alexandria Ogrey, University of Texas, El Paso; Mary Kay Roy, University of Texas, El Paso; Alan Siegel, NYU

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

Students Program (ESP) [4] attended by entering freshmen at theUniversity of Texas at El Paso, a primarily Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) serving an economicallydisadvantaged bi-national urban area on the US-Mexico border. The objective of the entering studentsprogram is to assist students in developing skills necessary for academic success in college and to assist incareer selection. MPCT, which is allocated approximately half of the course‟s instructional time, providestechnical content to complement the entering students program‟s curriculum that reviews study, note-taking,presentation, and writing skills, and career guidance. Introductory courses for technical disciplines such as computer science can offer a limited

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Aman Yadav, Purdue University; Mary Lundeberg, Michigan State University; Dipendra Subedi, Michigan State University; Charles Bunting, Oklahoma State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

undergraduatecourses in engineering disciplines to using a more learner-centered teaching, such as problem-based learning. This shift is fueled by the need for future engineers to demonstrate the use ofhigher order thinking, problem solving, and interpersonal aspects of a career, such ascommunication and team-work skills (NAE, 2005). Specifically, the engineering field is seeingshifts in the types of engineers needed to emerge from college ready to participate as active andeffective members of a global society. This leads to the search for a new pedagogy that willallow students to have higher critical thinking skills and create problem solvers who can work inthe complex and ill structured environment. However, it is not an easy task to teach students todeal

Conference Session

Electrical & Computer Engineering Division Poster Session

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Engelken

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

coauthors, and sometimes the primaryauthor. In recent years, almost all of the undergraduate research assistants have madepresentations, typically multiple ones, at regional conferences. Several have won awards for thebest undergraduate presentation within given disciplinary categories. Several have also beenrecipients of specifically student grants, for example, from NASA and the Arkansas ScholarsUndergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program. Several have gone-on to successfulgraduate education experiences at larger institutions, with four having received Ph.D. degrees,and numerous ones having received master degrees in electrical engineering or closely relatedareas. Essentially all have gone-on to successful engineering careers, either with or

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Cotae, University of the District of Columbia; Esther Ososanya, University of the District of Columbia; Lily Kemathe, University of the District of Columbia; Suresh Regmi, University of the District of Columbia; Kamden Patrice Kouam, The University of the District of Columbia

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

cited in Who’s Who in American Education, Who’s Who in America, and in Who’s Who in the World. He has been nominated two times for the best teacher award (2005 and 2006) in the College of Engineering at UTSA. He is the IEEE Director and IEEE ComSoc chair Whasington DC Section. He is Faculty Fellow for ONR-ASEE Summer Faculty Research Program.Esther Ososanya, University of the District of Columbia Dr. Esther T. Ososanya is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of the District of Columbia. During her career, Dr. Ososanya has worked for private industry as a circuit development engineer and as a software engineer, in addition to her academic activities. She

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE III

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Kelnhofer, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Stephen Williams, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Owe Petersen, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

ABET Engineering Criteria. There are threecomponents of the Engineering Criteria that carry a great deal of common sense for all programs: 1. A program should have educational objectives. They define the purpose of the program, what career paths the graduates ought to successfully be able to navigate, and suggest the kind of preparation that is required for those career path, i.e., they provide a deliberateness to the educational effort of the program. 2. A program should have program outcomes in the form of a knowledge base and defined capabilities of its students at the time of graduation. These are the characteristics and skills that propel graduates forward upon commencing their careers. They

Conference Session

Student Engagement in ECE

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Maher Rizkalla, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis; MIchael Knieser, ILSI; Mohamed El-Sharkawy, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

offered for the first time inFall 2007. The three modules were ASIC design, PCB design, and MEMS. Thefollowing survey was taken for 21 students who attended both ASIC and PCB design.Highest score was 5.0 and lowest is 1. 1. I intend to pursue a career in electronic manufacturing or a closely related area 3.77 2. I enjoyed Catapult software used in this ASIC design course 3.77 3. I found computer laboratories with ASIC design easy to follow and helpful for the project 4.05 4. I feel like I’ m gaining confidence to do hardware design with ASIC or PCB

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Syed Masud Mahmud, Wayne State University; Cheng-Zhong Xu, Wayne State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

, Emergent, and Distributed Systems, the Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking, and the Journal of Computers and Applications. He was a founding program cochair of the International Workshop on Security in Systems and Networks (SSN), a general co-chair of the IFIP 2006 International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (EUC ’06), and a member of the program committees of numerous conferences. His research was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation, NASA, and Cray Research. He is a recipient of the Faculty Research Award of Wayne State University in 2000, the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2002, and the Career Development Chair Award in

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Albert Liddicoat, California Polytechnic State University; Jianbiao Pan, California Polytechnic State University; James Harris, California Polytechnic State University; Gary Perks, California Polytechnic State University; Linda Shepherd, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

two associate degrees, an AS in construction technology and an AS in legal studies from Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, CA. Since January 1998, Mr. Perks has been a lecturer for both the electrical engineering and industrial manufacturing engineering departments at California Polytechnic State University. Also, Mr. Perks was a faculty member in the Engineering and Technology department at Cuesta College from 1999 to 2001. In addition, Mr. Perks began his career as an educator in the Air Force as a Captain teaching at the Undergraduate Space and Missile Training Institute at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Prior to his Air Force instructor

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE III

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Greg Nordstrom, Lipscomb University; John Pettit, David Lipscomb University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

results that inform various program improvement efforts, whichin turn drive program change. This process is shown in Figure 1 below. Program Educational Objectives process information “Employer Feedback on PEOs” survey results Faculty and Board of Advisors input Alumni “Career Assess Progress” survey results Institutional vision and mission

Conference Session

Web-based Learning in ECE

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sumit Dutta, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Shreya Prakash, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; David Estrada, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Eric Pop, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

methods.9 Finally, we note that the flexi-bility of this interface allows for continued growth of the Remote Lab in available instrumentbackends as well as with the user interface frontends.AcknowledgmentsWe would like to thank Mark Bohr and Intel Corporation for providing the Keithley 2612 andother Intel test devices for use in the remote laboratory. We also appreciate undergraduate feed-back by Mr. Jen-Chieh Liu and Mr. Shengzhao Wu. Additional funding was made possible bythe National Science Foundation grants CCF-0829907 and CAREER ECCS-0954423, the Page 15.113.8nanoHUB.org, the Micron Technology Foundation (D.E), the NSF and

Conference Session

Design in the ECE Curriculum

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Randal Abler, Georgia Tech; James Krogmeier, Purdue University; Aaron Ault, Purdue University; Julia Melkers, Georgia Institute of Technology; Tamara Clegg, Georgia Institute of Technology; Edward Coyle, Georgia Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

science, outcomes of science, and issues around career development and mentoring in STEM fields. Dr. Melkers has conducted performance-related work for the governments of Mexico and Latvia, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Research Council, HUD, the States of Alaska, Georgia, Rhode Island and Maine, the City of Atlanta, and the Atlanta Urban League. Dr. Melkers joined the Public Policy faculty in 2007. She previously was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Georgia State University, and the University of Alaska. She earned her PhD in Public Administration at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in 1993. She is co-editor of

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

George Gibbon, University of The Witwatersrand; Ian Jandrell, University of the Witwatersrand

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

excluded and leaving the university, after up to five yearsof study, with nothing more than their School Leaving Certificate.In the second and third year the engineering courses require conceptual thinking and learningwhich was clearly not developed in the previous years of study. In the first year we can blamethe poor secondary school system for not providing us with the correct “raw material” for oureducation process, but by third year we should have provided the required processes to changethe “raw material” into what our system requires. This is the responsibility of the first yearcourses and lecturers. An added responsibility, with our diverse intake, is to “persuade” studentswith no interest in engineering to pursue other careers at an early

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rosalind Wynne, Villanova University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

this point of their academic career, the students have not been exposed to concepts that arecontradictory to engineering tenants such as Ohm’s Law. The dynamic systems that are exploredare also very abstract and are not readily observed in the physical realm. For example, theconcept of an electron is familiar, yet the concept of a hole is very unclear to the student. Most ofthe mental hurdles that the students encounter are related to reconciling such contradictoryconcepts. However, initially, it is unclear to the student how to achieve this understanding.Unlike the previous course experiences where the electro-dynamic equations where limited toconditions such that only linear equations were required to analyze a system, the course inquestion

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stuart Wentworth, Auburn University; S. Hossein Mousavinezhad, Idaho State University; Mani Mina, Iowa State University; Wei PAN, Idaho State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

conferences. He is an ABET Program Evaluator (PEV) for Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. He is the Founding General Chair of the IEEE International Electro Information Technology Conferences (www.eit-conference.org), and past ASEE ECE Division Chair. He is IEEE Education Society Membership Development Chair and Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award Chair. He was the ECE Program Chair of the 2002 ASEE Annual Conference, Montreal, Quebec, June 16-19. Professor Mousavinezhad is recipient of Michigan State University’s 2009 John D. Ryder Electrical and Computer Engineering Alumni Award, received ASEE ECE Division’s 2007 Meritorious Service Award, ASEE/NCS Distinguished

Conference Session

Embedded System Design

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bin Wang, Wright State University; Zhiqiang Wu, Wright State University; Yong Pei, Wright State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

members with guidance from theinstructor. It is obvious that students need to maintain positive interdependence15,16: studentsneed to rely on each other to complete the project and nobody can do this alone. This teachesthem the necessity of being a team player and the needs to keep learning from colleagues in theirfuture careers. If students know they are going to be held individually accountable, they wouldmake a serious effort to learn and contribute.As instructors, we have attempted to integrate an assessment driven learning approach to ensurestudents’ progress. Assessment is built into the lab execution. For example, with the assistance ofGTAs, students in a team are randomly picked to report progress, and explain design choices anddecisions

Conference Session

Laboratory Development in ECE

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

R.F. William Hollender, Montana State University; James Becker, Montana State University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

most benefit in terms of using the material later in their careers and so thesesomewhat esoteric topics were removed from the course. Based on one of the author’sexperience in teaching students at Montana State over the last eight years, and in following whatmany of the EE 433 students do after graduation, the most common tasks that align withpotential content for EE 433 include RF/microwave board layout, component selection, andcircuit-level and system-level calculations. It is interesting to note that not one student hasindicated that he/she is involved with distributed filter design. In place of the lectures devotedto the theory of distributed element filter design, time in lecture was opened for discussing thefundamentals of Doppler radar

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Assessment in ECE II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gerard Rowe, University of Auckland; Chris Smaill, University of Auckland; Lawrence Carter, University of Auckland; Elizabeth Godfrey, University of Technology Sydney; Bernard Guillemin, The University of Auckland; Mark Andrews, University of Auckland; Waleed Abdulla, University of Auckland

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

5 Table 1. Course StatisticsOne possible explanation of student “at-risk” status is a mismatch between the student’spreferred learning style and the delivery style adopted in a particular course. For this reason,the first tutorial (run by a lecturer) provided an introduction to learning styles11, and theattendees were given the opportunity to attempt the Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Styles(ILS) questionnaire12. Assistance with the interpretation of individual ILS results wasprovided. Subsequent tutorials (run by senior PhD students who aspire to academic careers)dealt with relatively low-level technical issues on circuit theory, electronics andelectromagnetics. Postgraduate students (assisted on

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wookwon Lee, Gannon University; Sreeramachandra K. Mutya, Gannon University; Kirankumar Palthi, Gannon University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

frommismatched code-execution speeds of the two microprocessors, we have successfully integrateda pair of Synapse End Node and BASIC Stamp in cascade for each ARobot. With a Synapse EndNode on the ARobot, we have established networking capability among ARobots and the BridgeNode based on the SNAP. With an in-house GUI for generation of control commands, we havesuccessfully executed these commands on ARobots and controlled their motion as desired. Theinevitable inter-command delay was reasonable for the purpose of controlling ARobots in indoorenvironment. Finally, we have suggested a set of laboratory experiments for undergraduatestudents in electrical and computer engineering to help them better prepared for their early-stageprofessional career measured