Conference Session

Programmatic Issues in Physics or Engineering Phys

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Evan Lemley, University of Central Oklahoma; Baha Jassemnejad, University of Central Oklahoma; Matthew Mounce, US Navy; Jamie Weber, Parsons; Sudarshan Rai, Unknown; Willy Duffle, University of Central Oklahoma; Jesse Haubrich, University of Central Oklahoma

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Physics & Physics

significant studies1,2 concerning senior engineering capstone experiences have beenconducted in North America since the 1990's. The study by Todd et al.1 was conducted in 1995and included a array of 360 responses from engineering departments. There are many interestingfindings in the report, including the small number of programs with interdepartmental seniordesign courses and that a significant number of capstone experiences were individual rather thanteam projects. The authors suggested two “areas of improvement in engineering education,”including and increased practice of teamwork and involving industry in order to give studentspreparation for “real-world engineering practice.” There is little doubt that this study impactedengineering programs to

Conference Session

Programmatic Issues in Physics or Engineering Phys

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Chih-Hsiung Ku, National Dong-Hwa University, Taiwan(R.O.C.); Wen-Cheng Chen, National Dong-Hwa University, Taiwan(R.O.C.)

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Physics & Physics

research work is supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan,under grant 97-2511-S-259-008-MY3. The authors thank Shu-Chen Kuo for her help incollecting and analyzing the data in this study.Bibliography1. Carnegie Corporation of New York and Institute for Advanced Study (2009). The Opportunity Equation: Transforming Mathematics and Science Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy. Retrieved Jan. 8, 2010 from http://www.opportunityequation.org/2. Palmer, D. H. (2009). Student interest generated during and inquiry skills lesson. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(2), 147-165.3. Lester, F., Garofalo I., & Kroll, D. (1989). Self-confide, interest, beliefs and meta-cognition: key influences on problem

Conference Session

Innovations in Teaching Physics or Engineering Physics

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jian Peng, Southeast Missouri State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Physics & Physics

department to engineering physics students fora long time. Previously, our microcontroller course centered on Intel 8086 chips and the ISAbuses. Students learned 8086 assembly language and how to interface a PC with the externalworld via the ISA buses through various peripheral devices, including timers, RS232 serial ports,and interrupt subroutines. Software coding and debugging were performed under DOSenvironment using command-line instructions. Obviously the content of this course had stayedin the 1980’s and had not evolved with new generations of hardware and software. During ourdepartment’s internal curriculum review process for our 2006 ABET accreditation visit, wereached consensus that this course needed major revision to reflect the current

Conference Session

Innovations in Teaching Physics or Engineering Physics

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Teresa Larkin, American University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Physics & Physics

finalvelocity was a maximum at the point of impact with the water (and could be calculated using the constant acceleration equations ifthe falling distance or falling time was known).In physics, the term momentum (a vector) is used to describe “mass in motion.” Momentum can be found from: p = m × v,with units of kg-m/s. This looks a lot like a Newton, doesn’t it? We know that 1 N is equivalent to 1 kg-m/s2. Read on to see theconnection … When the eggs fell, their momentum changed from a zero initial value (pi = 0) to some final value (pf). Again, wecould calculate vf if we knew the falling distance or time. We could write this change in momentum as

Conference Session

Innovations in Teaching Physics or Engineering Physics

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Radian Belu, Drexel University; Alexandru Belu, Case Western Research University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Physics & Physics

recent progress in scientific computing.Many examples from recent research in physics and related areas are given with theprogram listing. Basic computational tools and routines, including the ones fordifferential equations, spectral analysis, and matrix operations, are dealt with throughrelevant examples, and more advanced topics are treated. The broad categories ofcomputational physics studied are simulation, visualization and modeling, numericalmethods, algorithms and data analysis. Simulation and modeling are taught by stressingnumerical techniques and programming language(s) techniques employed. Besideslearning how to solve numerical problems with a computer, the student also will gainexperience writing manuscripts in a scientific journal

Conference Session

Innovations in Teaching Physics or Engineering Physics

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Ross, University of Detroit Mercy

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Physics & Physics

workingphotovoltaic cell. The devices incorporate important aspects of nanotechnology such as longchain conjugated polymers and the fullerene, C60. The laboratory equipment is inexpensive andthe experiment can be readily replicated at other facilities. We believe that this experiment canbecome one of the foundational topics to be incorporated into a broader, more interdisciplinarycourse in nanotechnology.Bibliography1 See Conjugated Polymer-Based Organic Solar Cells, S. Gnes, H. Neugebauer, and N.S. Sariciftci, Chem. Rev., 107,1324-1338, (2007) and references therein.2 Conjugated Polymer Photovoltaic Cells, K.M. Coakley, and M.D. McGehee, Chem. Mater, 16, 4533-4552, (2004).3 Toward High-Performance Polymer Solar Cells: the Importance of