Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Medard Gabel

The Design Science/Global Solutions Lab: Interdisciplinary Problem/Project-Based Research and Learning Medard Gabel medard@bigpicturesmallworld.com 610.566.0156AbstractThe Design Science/Global Solutions Lab is a model for interdisciplinary problem and project-based research and learning. Students are briefed by UN experts, learn a problem solving andstrategic design and planning methodology, and use that to develop real world solutions andimplementation strategies for solving real world problems. Participants are multidisciplinary andfrom around the world. Output, developed by Lab participants, is

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

William Jemison; Christopher Nadovich

itselfis limited. Project management tools such as milestone and Gantt charts areintroduced; however, high-level task planning is still done by the faculty for thestudents. Typically, students work in the usual lab-pair teams. Each team ofstudents has the same design requirements, but the teams are discouraged frominter-collaborating.The first semester of senior design would be almost indistinguishable from atypical undergraduate lab assignment if it wasn’t for one critical difference: thescope of the project requires a multi-week effort. For the two-student teams tohave any chance of success, they need to plan ahead, spreading their work over amultiple weeks. In addition to the scheduling challenge, our first semester seniordesign also emphasizes

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Carl A. Erikson

several other faculty offer Science,Technology and World (STW) writing courses in “Exploring Electrical Technology” and“Appropriate Technology”. The FYS courses are limited to 18 students while the STW writingcourses are limited to 25. The Engineering major’s writing requirement is covered in twoseminar courses instead of one. Engineering Seminar I discusses various articles and readingsfrom two books culminating in the student’s essay, ”What is Good Engineering?”. Writingprinciples are reviewed and interventions in various phases of their essay are performed. InEngineering Seminar II, practical aspects such as job searching, resume writing, graduateschools, and financial planning are discussed with the course reviewing writing principles

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Sunghoon Jang; Kenneth Markowitz; Aparicio Carranza

and expensive materials for students,this would be a very good opportunity to gain the depth of knowledge and experience by planning,initiating, and conducting research in engineering technology principles throughout a firmlystructured weekly schedule of a senior capstone project course. Since the primary goal of thecapstone project course is to provide an opportunity for students to integrate principles, theories,and skills learned in previous courses to the solution of various realistic engineering technologyproblems, this course will help students learn how to develop, design, troubleshoot work,effectively in teams, and develop technical writing & presentation skills. Students will also learnand utilize a realistic simulation of the

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Barbara E. Mizdail

, specifically thedesign and management of technically oriented projects. The four phases of a project wereoutlined as follows.1 It is worthy to note that these phases have also been adopted in theIntroduction to Engineering Design classes and provide consistency in terminology for the firstyear engineering students. 1. Phase I - Conception Phase 2. Phase II - Study Phase 3. Phase III - Design Phase 4. Phase IV - Implementation PhaseNow was when the discussion of timelines was put to use. Students were shown examples ofproject timelines, and asked to make Gantt Charts. This is a very useful planning tool used inindustry. Those students familiar with MS Project were encouraged to use the software.Courses in MS Project are offered on campus

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Arthur D. Kney P.E.; Nancy Ball; Traci Shoemaker; Danuta Bukatko; Angela Moran; Joe Colosi

place betweenelementary and middle-school learners, their teachers, and their college faculty/student partners.This model is made possible by Information and Communications Technology (ICT) activitiesthat motivate and actively engage learners as well as educators. It will better prepare 3rd -7thgrade students for future academic and work-force endeavors in STEM disciplines as well asdemonstrate many practical applications of 21st century technology.Specifically, the model includes collaborative curriculum planning between elementary, middleschool and college faculty as well as mentoring/pedagogy development exercises for collegestudents. Inquiry-based instruction, hands-on activities and data collection on a global scale arekey elements of the

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Joshua H. Smith; David Brandes

be the facultyadvisor or another faculty member, but may also be a practicing engineer not directly affiliatedwith the college or university.The following work outlines the requirements of EWB–USA for professional mentoring ofstudent chapters. We then describe reasons for which the faculty advisors may not serve as theprofessional mentors. Finally, we explore the challenges in supporting EWB activities,especially for those chapters for which the professional mentor is not a member of the faculty,and provide information about how we plan to enhance our ability to support and assess studentlearning through EWB–USA in the future.Professional Mentoring Policies of EWB–USAEWB–USA policies regarding the mentoring of student work have evolved

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Beth Richards; Karen Walsh

ABET as well as essential forstudents’ future success in the workplace.BackgroundThe University of Hartford has significant history of collaboration between the first-yearrequired engineering curriculum and the first-year required writing curriculum. Since 2000, thesecourses have been paired in First Year Interest Groups (FIGS) in which instructors plan andimplement shared objectives and course activities, to emphasize the essential relationshipbetween engineers and written and spoken literacy.1 Although writing instructors andengineering instructors must give first priority to departmental objectives, critical thinking andanalytical skills cut across both disciplines, and shared or linked assignments (called “integratedlearning blocks”) are

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Christopher J. Lowrance

working onproblem in the classroom as part of the weekly lecture time? Besides just receiving feedbackfrom our students about their understanding and gauging our effectiveness in teaching, problemsolving in the classroom is an active form of learning which is generally agreed upon to be thebest form of learning.Description of the Teaching MethodI am absolutely convinced there are several benefits gained by dedicating time during theclassroom lecture period for the students to practice on problems related to that particular day’slesson. Before I discuss these benefits, allow me to explain the flow of a typical lesson in myclassroom. During my lesson planning before class, I organize my lesson’s learning objectivesin a logic and linear fashion and

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Christopher L. Reitsma

and integrate the circuit and code together, which is electronicallyprovided, include a working demonstration, and then allow the students an opportunity toperform the activity themselves. These “observational and hands-on activities will have moreeducational value if they are planned so as to be integrated with overall course objectives andactively connected to what is happening in class.”3Incorporating the Robot SystemIn many engineering, math and science courses, teachers take a very active approach to assist thestudents in learning. Mainly, in-class exercises or daily work problems help achieve this goal.With computer science, practice in writing code with various structures are demonstrated andexecuted. With robotics, especially a small

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Orla Smyth LoPiccolo

correlation between what is being said and seen throughout the video.17 8. Gross recommend, ―Avoid complicated charts and graphs. They often require individuals to take time to process the information, causing them to miss whatever comes next on the videotape.‖18 9. Pair a video with a reading assignment.19 10. Break up or rearrange parts of the viewing, as required by the individual lesson plan.20 11. Conduct a follow-up activity to assess comprehension of the video. 21 12. With regard to videos of experiments: Per Lyons et al in a study of student response to videoed experiments, ―The videos where the student was able to see the experimenter received the most favorable reviews. Students really liked

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Timothy B. Whitmoyer; David T. Vader; Joel Z. Bandstra; William H.J. Strosnider

performance with more widely used handpumps.DiscussionThe narrative of this project’s history clearly demonstrates that the student’s participation helpssatisfy the general ABET Program Outcomes13. All of the senior projects required designingexperimental apparatus, developing a plan of study, and inferring the necessary changes in thepump design (Outcome b). The 2006-2007 project is the best example of satisfying thisoutcome. The students constructed a test apparatus and performed over 450 hours of automatedpumping for durability testing. The team tested several variations of three distinct piston sealdesigns and analyzed the results to find the best combination of longevity and efficiency.Any student designing or redesigning a subsystem of the pump

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

AS Ward; MN Gooseff; RY Toto; SE Zappe

fluid (bythe design component of the labs. No Armfield, Ltd.). SAE 50 (left) and NAPA 20 (right)comparison of student responses or scores on oils were used for the experiment.   the virtual labs with traditional assessment data (i.e., scores on exams, course grades) hasbeen made at this time.Future WorkA second delivery of the virtual labs is planned for the Fall 2010 semester. Student andinstructor feedback from the pilot project will be used to revise the content and deliveryof both experiments. Additional student feedback from the same measures will becollected, both after each lab and at the end of the course. Student feedback, data onlearning outcomes and student

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Peter J. Shull; Jessica M. Crandall

Toyota World No. 1 Car Maker,” Reuters.com. Reuters. http:/www.reuters.com/article/businessnews/idUSN2424076820080124. Retrieved 19 April 2008.4. M. Adams, P. Componation, H. Czarnecki, and B. Schroer. “Simulation as a Tool for Continuous Process Improvement,” Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Simulation Conference, pp. 766-773, 1999.5. D. Reis and LPena. “Linking Customer Satisfaction, Quality, and Strategic Planning,” Revista de Administracao de Empresas, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 42-46, 2000.6. M. E. Pritchard and G. S. Wilson. “Using Emotional and Social Factors to Predict Student Success,” Journal of College Student Development, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 18-28, 2003.

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Christopher L. Reitsma

,instructors have to help encourage completion with interim grades for larger assignments, or justmake assignments smaller or easier.In EE302 the author presented a plan on lesson one and made several reminders throughout thecourse. Specifically, the author advised to spend about one hour in preparation before a lessonconsisting of the text assignment with review of provided notes and ICE problem. The classlecture reviews and highlights some of the topics, practices them with ICEs and clarifies anyquestions or confusion from the text. The students should then spend their second hour after thelesson completing SPs and the homework problem for that lesson. This is an opportunity toconfirm the concept individually. Also, if a problem arises, it can be

Collection

2010 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Engineers Without Borders–USA Student Chapters: The LafayetteThe Design Science/Global Solutions Lab College Experienceis a model for interdisciplinary problem and Joshua Smitha & David Brandesbproject-based research and learning. Students are Departments of aMechanical Engineering andbriefed by UN experts, learn a problem-solving b Civil and Environmental Engineeringand strategic design and planning methodology, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042and use that to develop real-world solutions