Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

John Ciezki; Steve Watkins

The Comprehensive Handling of Safety in an Autonomous Robot Capstone Project Dr. John G. Ciezki, U.S. Air Force Academy Dr. Steve E. Watkins, Missouri University of Science and TechnologyAbstractA systematic approach to safety issues is described in the context of an autonomous robotcapstone project. The treatment of safety should not be an ad hoc or after-thought aspect ofdesign projects. Engineering students need to consider safety as an integral component of thedesign process and to identify and address hazards systematically in each stage of project work.Appropriate actions include researching professional standards and regulations, incorporatingsafety

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Charles Baukal

Summative Heat Transfer Project: Designing a House Charles E. Baukal, Jr. Oral Roberts UniversityAbstractProject- and problem-based learning have been shown to enhance learning and to provide otherbenefits such as improving soft skills including teamwork and communication. They can beespecially effective for engineering students to demonstrate how theory is applied to real worldproblems. While comprehensive projects are an essential element in capstone courses, they arenot used as often in traditional more theory-based courses such as heat transfer. This paperdescribes an example of a summative and ill-structured project to design a house

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Rajeev Nair; Yimesker Yihun; Muhammad Rahman

.” Capstone projectinstructors also echo this. In other words, students were not adequately prepared to work on theirsenior design projects, unless they had prior industrial or volunteering experiences. Studentswere found to be unable to develop ideation and design skills independently prior to enrolling intheir required culminating experience. The inability of engineering graduates to engineer anddesign impedes the industrial productivity in the United States, since these students lack theskills that are in great demand by current employers (Tian 2014). This issue is rooted in the lackof preparatory courses that inculcate the design process in our students early in their educationalprogram. The traditional focus is on the important appropriate

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Laura Ford

Adding Reflection and Oral Communication to a Design Project – Work in ProgressReflection-in-action was encouraged in a junior-level design project by providing a competitor'sdesign to teams. Students then compared their designs to the competitor's design in an oralpresentation. The competitor's design had calculations errors and a different, less expensiveprocess than most of the students chose to use. Interesting questions developed as studentscompared their designs to that of the competitor. Methods, transferability, pitfalls, and futurestudies are discussed in the paper.IntroductionA colleague [placeholder for blind review] and I have taught similar junior-level courses atdifferent universities for a

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Yimesker Yihun; AmirHossein MajidiRad

strong interest in the PBL and ADAMS modeling and simulation approach to engage inthe course and to develop curiosity towards research.Introduction In most institutions, research and development in undergraduate STEM programs are left asideor overlooked. However, to translate theory into practice, programs must be projected to promoteresearch and innovation. Capstone design project offered in the final year of graduation is too latefor the students to learn the state of the art of research and to solve community based and practicalproblems. The learning curve and the quality of work could have been improved highly, if thisengagement and exposition to research started early in their first and sophomore years (Dym,Agogino et al. 2005, Savage

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kenny Garner; Beth McMillan; Michael DeAngelis; Laura Ruhl; Andrew Wright

Novel Collaboration between Engineering and Geosciences to Design a Green Power Station for Field Camp: A Case StudyAbstractOne of the Department of Systems Engineering’s capstone projects was to design a portablesustainable power generation unit to support the Department of Earth Sciences’ Geology FieldCamp. The team of electrical and mechanical engineering students worked with the faculty ofEarth Sciences to develop specifications. The design had to fit within the existing trailer withoutmajor modifications to the trailer. The final design housed the battery pack in a tongue-mountedbox on the trailer with water proof outlets to charge devices. Four solar panels were connectedthrough keyed connectors to the box to work

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Virginia Charter P.E.

, the focus is a project-based assignmentthroughout the course where the student has the capability of applying all of the technicalknowledge learned during their progression through their specific engineering technologyprogram. In order to answer the above question, this study utilized the capstone courses of twodifferent ABET-TAC accredited engineering technology programs. Within these courses, thebaseline Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) was used to determine how well thestudents assessed themselves in relation to the Criteria 3 a-k. The baseline instrument wasadministered at the beginning of the semester to the two different capstone courses. Studentsresponded to the instrument through its online portal.Results The

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kim Fowler; Don Gruenbacher

scrapping ECE590 and its professional development/capstone requirements and turn it into a Systems Engineering class.” • “. . . the material was relevant. It did teach us quite a bit of stuff about the business of engineering that no other classes touched on.” • “Replace with senior level design class.” • “. . . spent a bit too much time on documentation. I realize today how important it is. . .” • “Have someone with actual experience in industry teach the course so that the expectations are reasonable.” • “Cost analysis”The comments and suggestions can be summarized into these four primary points: 1. Projects should be cross-disciplinary and sponsored by either businesses or other professors. 2

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Lionel Hewavitharana; Mahbub Ahmed; John Hauver; Joseph Lonigro; Allan Derrickson

experiment from EDIBON Co.Ahmed et al. (2015) first reported the beginning of constructing lab equipment in-house at theEngineering and Physics department at SAU. This current paper reports the continuation of theeffort made earlier and discusses the building of an equipment in-house for the “Impact of a Jet”experiment.Design and Construction of the Lab EquipmentThe equipment was designed, constructed, and tested in a senior design project undertaken bythree senior students Joseph Lonigro, John Hauver, and Allan Derrickson in spring 2017. Theyunderwent a complete design experience in the process. The design team researched existingdesigns, developed engineering design specifications, produced a project management plan,evaluated several concept

Collection

2017 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Yimesker Yihun; Rajeev Nair; Jason Herron

2017 ASEE Midwest Section ConferenceChanging the Paradigm “Cheating In a Traditional Exam Setting” Into a Possible Productive Team Work Arena and the Associated Student Perception Yimesker Yihun1, Rajeev Nair1 and Jason Herron2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA2 Department of Counseling, Educational Leadership, Educational and School Psychology, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA Abstract: Active learning and project-based-learning (PBL) approaches are getting great attention andacceptance to maximize learning in undergraduate education. For the success