Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Julie Wang

The “Real-World” Senior Capstone Design Projects Julie Wang Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD 21532 AbstractOur collaborative Mechanical Engineering program with University of Maryland at College Parkhad two successful senior capstone design projects which were completed under the strongsupport by the ITT Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and AES Company in Cumberland,Maryland. Both projects were created by the summer student internships, since the students’excellent work have impressed the engineers in the two companies.The first is a system design project. The project provides ITT Company the ability to test

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Scott Kiefer; Kala Meah; James Moscola; Tristan Ericson

Building Community Relationships with a Senior Design Experience Profs. Scott Kiefer, Kala Meah, James Moscola, and Tristan Ericson Department of Engineering and Computer Science York College of Pennsylvania York, PA 17403The Mechanical, Electrical, and Computer Engineering Programs at York College havemandatory co-op programs in which each student receives three semesters of engineering workexperience. Our senior design courses further develop our students’ design and projectdevelopment skills by intentionally targeting projects that emphasize working within a largerteam. For example, we have built autonomous robots for the

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

R. Alan Cheville; Michael S. Thompson

Developing Representations to Scaffold Capstone Design R. Alan Cheville, Michael S. Thompson Bucknell UniversityThis presentation discusses how representations—methods for how ideas are expressed—havebeen incorporated into a capstone design project in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Overthe past several years the authors have been developing methods that effectively represent thedesign process. This work discusses how four different representations were implemented in thefirst semester of a one year capstone design course to allow student teams to self-manage aproject in the second semester. The four representations are: 1) A functional abstraction that

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Wayne Blanding; Scott Kiefer; Kala Meah; Tristan Ericson

essentially a full summer semester) and the following spring. The first semester isfocused on research and design, and the second semester is dedicated to build and test. At thebeginning of the first semester, students are already placed on capstone projects and the researchphase begins in earnest to allow enough time to complete a project design by the end of thesemester. We have historically targeted projects that require at least eight students, andsometimes up to twenty, that require students from our various engineering disciplines(mechanical, electrical, computer). Recent examples include autonomous robots for theInternational Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) and formula style race cars for the Society ofAutomotive Engineering Formula Student

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Margot Vigeant

Vigeant is a professor of chemical engineering and an associate dean ofengineering at Bucknell University. Her research interests center on teaching andlearning in engineering, and in particular the ways that active learning techniques canenhance conceptual learning. Current projects include developing and testing differentmodes of inquiry-based activities for learning in heat transfer, studying changes insituational curiosity and motivation associated with different pedagogies, and the impactof student-produced instructional videos. Upcoming projects include considering howmaker spaces impact student learning and the use of games to teach engineering concepts.She is an Apple Distinguished Educator, and has previously presented versions of

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Tyler Moser; Rungun Nathan; Barbara Mizdail

complex concepts and use highlysophisticated information tools. While universities around the world have rapidly implementedfirst year courses to help students bridge their transition into the information systems of highereducation, Penn State Berks has chosen to combine these trends into a distinct first yearexperience specifically for first year engineering students that teach important skills for boththeir collegiate and professional careers. It was observed that first year engineering students come with enthusiasm ready to tackledifficult concepts. They come ready to do engineering. This program consists of a semesterlong first year course. Initially the students are given a selection of faculty research projects tochoose from. From

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Joe Tranquillo; Eric Santanen; Doug Allen

interrelated parts. First, each day there are two three-hour classroom sessions. Thesesessions are led by faculty or external executives and are intimate, interactive and story-based. Second, interdisciplinary teams of six students work on a corporate-sponsoredconsulting project. The projects have a significant technology component and are ‘live’,meaning that they are critical unsolved problems at the client’s organization. Interactionsinclude a day-long site visit, regular phone and email exchanges and in-person meetings.At the conclusion of the six weeks, teams deliver in person a consulting report and threehour long presentation to their client.PeopleEntry into the program is competitive and limited to 24 highly motivated rising juniors.Typically

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Sadan Kulturel-Konak

Can Engineering Students’ Teamwork Skills Be Improved? Sadan Kulturel-Konak Penn State BerksThe lack of effective teamwork has been identified among the most important factorscontributing to the high failure rate of complex engineering projects. Therefore, it isessential that engineering students excel in teamwork skills in addition to the technicalskills. In this study, we explore students’ self efficacy and interest towards teamworksince the research suggests that the sufficient level of self efficacy can encouragepersonal growth and skill development and interest is a construct that can predictstudents’ professional development in a domain. Therefore, we have

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Margaret G. Wismer

arange of intensities. Much of the course was structured around the Arduinomicrocontroller board, sensors, LEDs, seven segment displays and dotmatrix displays. The course met twice a week in 1 hour 15 minute sessionsand was conducted in lab format such that students spent most of their timebuilding circuits from schematics, collecting data with meters and viacomputer communication and altering code. Students worked in pairs andevaluation was based on completion of weekly handouts, two lab practicums(done individually) and a lab project. The presentation will discuss thenature of the handouts, how material was introduced, how students reactedto it, problems that were encountered, and teacher’s and students’ perceptionof the course’s relative

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Diego Aldana; Alan Cheville; Gretchen Hueges; Joe Meiser; Nathan Siegel; Margot Vigeant

Chemical Engineering, Bucknell University * Presenting AuthorAs the Maker Movement continues to grow nationally, more and more universities are openingmakerspaces on campus to serve a student population drawn to creative expression throughhands-on projects. Smaller, undergraduate-focused universities like Bucknell have constraintsthat make it difficult to launch and operate a single, large makerspace. As such, Bucknell hasadopted a network-based approach by which multiple makerspaces across campus will bemanaged under a common set of access and safety policies. Our network includes a primarymakerspace called the 7th St. Studio that is centrally located on campus

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Abdullah Konak

Teamwork Peer Assessment Based on the Model of Domain Learning Abdullah Konak Penn State BerksIn engineering education, team projects and collaborative learning strategies are increasinglyused to prepare students for today’s engineering careers which require functioning inmultidisciplinary teams for success. Assessing students’ teamwork skills is difficult, but it is anecessary task to give them guidance for personal development and to design effectiveinterventions to address weaknesses. Self- and peer evaluations are frequently used to evaluateindividual student performance in teamwork and assess students’ teamwork knowledge, skills,and attitudes. Assessing teamwork and conducting

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Jumoke Ladeji-Osias; LaDawn Partlow; Monique Head; Roshan Paudel; Jonathan Farley; Omar Muhammed

, National Maker programs rarely target thisdemographic. The Minority Male Makers (MMM) Program, directed by Morgan StateUniversity, in Baltimore has established a Maker community in Northeast Baltimore City thatallows middle school students and their teachers to develop science, technology, engineering,and mathematics skills while expressing their creativity. The long-term goal of this project is forparticipants to 1) create products using 3-D modeling software and 3-D printers, 2) developsoftware and embedded applications, 3) enhance computational thinking skills, and 4) pursuerelated entrepreneurial ventures. This effort is a partnership between the School of Engineeringand School of Education. Middle school teacher and student participants were

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Linda Musser

, productivity tools, discoverability, and more. Consideration ofthese factors at the beginning of a project can save time, protect data, and facilitateaccess and discoverability.Some of the factors and questions include:• Storage quota – What quantity of data can you store on the medium?• Upload size allowed – Are there limits on the file sizes that can be uploaded?• Expandability – If more space is needed, can you expand your allotment?• Lifetime – How long will the data need to be stored?• Timeline – How quickly do you need to store the data?• Encryption – Is this needed? Is it a capability of the storage medium?• Security from theft (hacking) – How well protected is the storage medium?• Preservation – Does the medium perform checks for file

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Linda R. Musser

this finalfactor should not be underestimated. Incidents of incivility and undermining behavior can have amajor impact on retention of women. Materials developed by the Center for Work Life Law atthe University of California as part of the Gender Bias Learning Project are valuable tools thatcan be used to illustrate and raise awareness of these issues.

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Oguz Soysal

energy generation systemsFundamentals of Energy Engineering course addresses the specific outcomes b, c, f,g, i, j, k of ABET Criterion 3.The presentation includes an outline of the course topics, developed hands-onactivities, and student design projects.

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Peter Mark Jansson; Neil M. Boyd

photovoltaicsystem designs and proposals. Each of the 12 student participants created business plans thatincluded business mission, market situational analysis, and pro-forma balance sheets, cash-flowstatements, and income statements.The summer institute model can be an effective co-curricular tool to develop many professionalskills and leadership attributes that are more difficult to cultivate in the classroom settings inengineering and management. The self-directed, non-graded nature of the assignments andexpectations can challenge students’ intrinsic motivation. Initially the student expectation, oftenone of waiting to be ‘taught’ can be more quickly overcome in a project-based, summer, co-curricular type of learning environment. The sense of obligation

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Raghav Khanna

GaN) and prepare an oral presentation supplemented with awrite-up which explains why their selected technology is the best for future versions of powerelectronic circuits. This project enabled students to perform literature searches in highlyreputable IEEE Transactions journals. Not only did this experience give students a taste of thegraduate school experience, but it also highlighted to them the most important and pertinentareas of research in the power electronic arena. The course concluded as conventional powerelectronic courses do, with analysis of AC-DC converters (inverters) and isolated DC-DCconverters. Course evaluations demonstrated that students responded very positively to both thetheoretical and applied nature of the

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Janine Glathar; Michelle Oswald Beiler; Kevin Gilmore

the use of mapping tools such as GIS in the field, students are taught basicskills in GIS through course projects such as the development of web-map applications for railtrail accessibility and connections, pedestrian and cycling mobility travel demand modeling, anddaily campus commuting travel patterns for carbon footprint analysis.In the course New Orleans in 12 Movements (UNIV200), three faculty came together fromdiverse disciplines (Music, History, and Civil & Environmental Engineering) to form anuncommon team , attempting to explore with students questions of how the ‘Crescent City’ ofNew Orleans came to be and how it is sustained in its precarious location at the nexus of theMississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Lectures and

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Michael Shares; Zachary Lemke; Caitlin Kneapler; Kirk Ingold; Brian Souhan

. Using the experimental setup described above and shown in Fig. 1, we conducted experiments toexamine how spot sizes varied after one to five burns over the same spot, with burns ranging from 26 to29 ms in time. Using multiple, rapid burns produced consistent carbonized spots in the Kapton of lessthan 15µm in diameter, with many less than 10µm and some as small as 4 µm as seen in Fig. 1. Previousresearch on this project produced conducting lines that correlated strongly with the spot size of the beam,suggesting that conducting lines of less than 15µm are obtainable with continued study throughout thissemester. (a) (b

Collection

2015 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Linda S. Hirsch

with the NGSS focuses on 21st century skillsand self-efficacy by providing an interdisciplinary, project-based learning environment thatdraws mostly on math, science, and technology and fosters essential 21st century skills such asproblem-solving, communication, collaborative teamwork, imagination and creativity. At thestart of the program students are presented with a real-life scenario that contains a core problemto be solved and are assigned to work in teams of four. Students receive an introduction to theEngineering Design Process (EDP), are taught how to apply the EDP in developing and testing aprototype, receive instruction in how to keep an engineering logbook and are required to make apresentation about their solution to the core