Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

John Adams; Charles Kochakian

track all items picked up andexamined by a customer, this could lead to unwanted targeting by advertisers. There are alsosignificant business concerns, such as pressure by consumer groups to adopt privacy guidelinesthat have the potential of directly slowing the growth of RFID technology. The challenge toindustry is to take a more proactive position as RFID solutions become integrated into businessenterprises. An interesting topic is the efforts by industry advocating EPC global as a facilitator toadopt policy guidelines for both consumers and RFID technology in business processes andpractices.ConclusionsA course in RFID has been adopted as part of the core Electrical Engineering curriculum atMerrimack College. The choice to do so was based in

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Abdelrahman M. Rabie; Rahman Haleem

1 A Model for a Bi-lingual Curriculum Abdelrahman M Rabie, Associate Professor, ISAT Department, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA Rahman Haleem Assistant Professor and Director, Institute for Technological Innovations (ITI), Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab EmiratesAbstractThere has been an increasing demand for multilingual professionals, in various fields includingengineering, which in turn which in turn lead to the increased demand and

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

M.G. Guvench

courses mentioned above. As a matter of fact, thanks to anotherNSF grant received in mid 1990’s it became integrated in our Electrical Engineering curriculum and it isused extensively in most of the courses we deliver. Having such a standard computational tool gives thestudent long enough a time to become a competent user and saves time from training particularly in thehigher level courses where course-specific tools have to be introduced.2. Description of the CourseThe Analog Integrated Circuits (=”CMOS Analog IC Design”) course has the goal to introduceprinciples of operation, fabrication technology and design of analog integrated circuits to ElectricalEngineering students at the senior level. VLSI fabrication is introduced with an emphasis on

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Eileen M. Kowalski; Joe D. Manous

education, general chemistry, within an environmental engineeringeducation. Chemistry was selected as an area of investigation because of its repetitive application withinthe environmental engineering curriculum and, as such, provides a basic science topic that should bereasonably well understood by all environmental engineering undergraduates. Three successive cohortsof 12 seniors majoring in an ABET accredited environmental engineering program at the United StatesMilitary Academy were interviewed a few weeks before graduation on selected chemistry topics. Eachstudent was presented with five questions (Table 1) and asked to work the problems on a blackboard,explaining to the interviewers their thought process as they proceeded. The sessions were

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

R. Radharamanan; Ha Van Vo

. 8[6] Barr, R. E., Schmidt, P. S., Krueger, T. J and Twu C-Y., “An Introduction to Engineering Through and Integrated Reverse Engineering and Design Graphics Project,” Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 89 (No. 4), 2000, pp. 413-418.[7] Moor, S. S., and Drake, B. D., “Addressing Common Problems in Engineering Design Projects: A Project Management Approach”, Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 90 (No. 3), 2001, pp. 389-395.[8] Sheppard, S. D., “Design as Cornerstone and Capstone,” Mechanical Engineering Design, November, 1999, pp. 44-47, New York, NY.[9] Swearengen, J. C., Barnes, S., Coe, S., Reinhardt, C., and Subramanian, K., “Globalization and the Undergraduate Manufacturing Curriculum

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Elif Kongar; Paul Kontogiorgis; Nancy L. Russo; Tarek Sobh

and manufacturing as the leading contributor to gross domesticproduct in the world today. As the global economy has become more integrated, and the demand for aworkforce required to run service-focused organizations in an efficient manner grows, the level andvariety of skills needed in this new service economy have also changed and grown. In particular, thegrowth rate of technology-driven service industries is significantly outpacing the growth in other service-oriented sectors. It has been argued that women in general possess many characteristics that make themoptimal candidates to fulfill this workforce gap. However, the percentage of women enrolled inengineering, technology and related programs have been dropping. This paper attempts to

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Roy T.R. McGrann

software package (Pro/Engineer) that integrates solid modeling,simulation/kinematic analysis, and finite element analysis is used as the basis of this course.As a means to education in design, students must first be trained to use the software. Fourteen videoswere created for this course, which incorporated audio combined with PowerPoint slides. The videofiles (avi’s) are distributed to students on five CD’s. This paper briefly describes the structure of thecourse and how the videos are integrated.The effectiveness of the software training and design education was assessed using a specific problemassignment that is repeated (although modified) each year. This is often referred to as a “markerproblem.” In this case, the assignment is an aircraft

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Matt Armstrong; Richard L. Comitz; Andrew Biaglow; Russ Lachance; Joseph Sloop

wellas engineering decision making concepts. Lastly our novel approach to curriculum development allowed for an earlier incorporation of theactual data into the process via ChemCad, the Chemical Engineering software that was used by eachstudent. Typically, use of this software does not occur until later in the design sequence. Background The Friedel-Crafts reaction is used in laboratory synthesis as well as in industry in the synthesis ofethylbenzene and its derivatives as an intermediate to make styrene monomers1. Therefore, this reactionwas a good choice to integrate several different courses. Laboratory experiments conducted during the second semester of organic chemistry generallyillustrate practical

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Arthur Heinricher; Brian Savilonis; David Spanagel; Robert Traver; Kristin Wobbe

(2004).Menzel, P. and F. D’Aluisio, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, Ten Speed Press (2005).Pollan, M., The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, The Penguin Press (2006).Roedel, R.J., S. El-Ghasaly, and J.T. Aberle, “An Integrated Upper Division Course in Electronic Materials and Electromagnetic Engineering—Wave Phenomena for Electrical Engineers,” Proceedings, Frontiers in Education, Tempe, AZ (1998).Smith, B.L., J. MacGregor, R.S. Matthews, and F. Gabelnick, Learning Communities: Reforming Undergraduate Education, Jossey-Bass (2004).Somerville, M. et al, “The Olin Curriculum: Thinking Toward the Future,” IEEE Transactions on Education, 48(1) 198—205 (2005).Sternberg, R.J., “Interdisciplinary Problem-Based

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Aaron S. Bradshaw; Gary N. McCloskey; Franklin Miguel

it have implications that may tear them apart?Design Phase (Reflection-for-Action)In the design phase, the students will synthesize all the information that they have gathered from theresearch and field studies to ultimately develop a satisfactory design solution. This will require that theyreflect on their technical skills learned in their other course work as well as on their research experiencesin the first two sections of the course. In the course work, this will be an introduction to reflection-for-action. In this synthesis the student designers will need to integrate technical and “soft” skillunderstandings to provide a technically strong and practically feasible design solution.The students will first develop a number of possible

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Richard B. Mindek

toexperiment with the program structure needed to control particular output devices. Student feedback todate suggests the availability of this platform, which encourages self-exploration, has had a very positiveimpact on student learning in a recently run graduate course. Plans for implementing an experientiallearning approach using an updated version of the same platform in the undergraduate engineeringcurriculum are also discussed.1.0 IntroductionA programmable logic controller (PLC) is a microprocessor-based control system used by industry tocommunicate with other process control components. It is used in process control for simple switchingtasks, proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control, complex data manipulation, arithmetic operations

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Dean M. Aslam; Zongliang Cao; Cyrous Rostamzadeh

unique way and (b) attemptvery difficult and dry topics. One example is the explanation of a microcontroller (µC), its building blocks, andtheir fabrication/operation. A microcontroller is a computer chip that is the brain of today’s consumer products including those based onmicro- and nano-systems. It is a computer-on-a-chip suitable for applications that require high integration, lowpower consumption, and low cost. An electrostatic switch, called an MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor)transistor, is the basic building block of a microcontroller. Using the basic MOS concept different types ofcomputer switches are made, which are needed for computing and memory devices. Some examples are n-channel MOS (NMOS), PMOS (p-channel), and CMOS (a